


You Look Like Someone I Used To Love

by EmilysRose



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: AU, F/F, F/M, Hales are alive, Hunter!Stiles, It's so AU even familiar characters are OC af, M/M, Magic!Stiles, Nemeton, OC, Stiles has a twin, Werewolf Pack, enemies into friends into lovers, so sad dead twin, twin is dead
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-21
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2018-11-03 05:31:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 41,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10960701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmilysRose/pseuds/EmilysRose
Summary: Stiles realizes his brother is dead and he decides it’s time to go back home to Beacon Hills. Since he was 18 he’d been living his life as a Hunter, killing werewolves for the government. More than ten years later, he expects to come home to a town that barely remembers him and a family that’s all buried in the local cemetery—what he doesn’t expect is to share his grief with the local werewolf pack.





	1. You Will Be Missed

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote this about a year ago, thought I'd post it. It's almost 100% AU and OC, with only small similarities that are more like Easter Eggs than anything else.

**1\. You Will Be Missed**

Stiles could hardly remember Beacon Hills. It wasn’t like in the stories or movies; nostalgia didn’t flood into him and the town didn’t look as if he’d never left it. He wasn’t filled with some strange mix of recognition and affection. It looked like any other Northern California town, nestled up in the trees and exposed to the wild, unterraformed forests that came down from the Olympic Peninsula. It had all the modern conveniences of a United States town; fast food chains, gas stations with no public restrooms, and the usual—like cemeteries. There were five full cemeteries in a town whose population didn’t exceed 15,000.

He had to use his car rental’s GPS to figure out what street he was on. It led him to a Safeway so he could fuck around in the parking lot and figure out the cemeteries. There were two separate, older ones in the Preserve, a separate county from Beacon Hills, but Stiles figured he could ignore them. He may not remember where his family’s burial plot was, but he was sure he could remember what county they were in. At least, he was pretty sure.

On impulse, he shut off his rental and walked into the Safeway for a bottle of Russian Standard. Personally, he wasn’t a vodka fan. It was right down there on the list of his favorite liquors along with Mead and Absinthe but it seemed more appropriate to grab vodka than Whisky, somehow. He kept it in the paper bag and put it in his cup holder, going from cemetery to cemetery and trying to figure out where his family was. The first cemetery he just drove by, knowing his family could never be buried behind a church—only humans can be buried in “holy ground”. It was a stupid kind of irony that had made no sense to him when he was younger; humans aren’t holy, they are the furthest thing from it, a confusing mix of goodness and evil, of action and inaction, of apathy and lack of care for their fellow man. But then he realized that religion was created by humans and they defined the terms—so of course they put their own species at the top and anything ‘holy’ was just a term for humane elitism that kept all the ‘unholy’ creatures out.  Either way, his family would never be buried behind a church. He kept driving, finding a second cemetery across town. He held the vodka loosely in his right fist as he spent an hour walking between graves, looking for a familiar plot. When it was obvious that his family wasn’t there, he drove to the third.

The third was named Clayton and was one of the oldest in Beacon County. It could probably rival the Preserve, with names of the dead leading all the way back to the 18th century. Clayton was behind a suburban neighborhood, across from a ballpark, in a block between a zoo and a bar. He could hear children and sprinklers and the occasional bleat of a lama and loud base of some Aerosmith as the bar door’s opened. He kept the vodka bottle in his right hand again.

His family wasn’t very old or very well known for its power within the magical world. More often than not, half the children born in the Stilinski bloodline was born with little to no magic, called One Trick Ponies. Some of the greater magical families had crypts all around the world where the bones were salted and mixed in with the structures of the buildings for the newer generations to be housed in. Some of them were preserved with perfect mummification to be bowed to and worshiped and used for spells and grimoires. There was even a great family in France—the Dotty family or the Palomar family, Stiles couldn’t remember—that burned their dead and mixed the ashes in with the fertilizer of a great Nemeton on their grounds.  But those were the greats and Stiles’s humble family had none of the fame and power. Before coming to America, they’d hardly even had grave-markers. Before that, they hadn’t even been worthy of the Great Witch Trials that had shaken the magical world after the Inquisition.

Stiles found his family in Clayton. The grave he passed was the newest and he a bunch of fresh flowers. He walked past it without looking at the stone marker in the ground and passed the others—to the oldest stone in the small, lonely plot. It was his grandfather’s, big and clunky and it looked like it was made out of rough and crumbling cement. Stiles’s fingers traced over the cratered top, his thumb finding a bit of exposed rebar trying to poke out. The face of the marker was in Cyrillic and it didn’t mention dates or names. That was the custom of Russian witches. Instead, it only spoke of his _Dedushka’s_ power level—a medium level, not truly special, not truly powerless—and the words _He left behind a wife and a daughter. His life will be celebrated, not mourned_.

Stiles had no memories of his old and cranky Russian grandfather. He bent over the old cement and kissed it’s dusty broken surface. He whispered, “It was inevitable” and let out a little of his magic. His power, his magic, had no specific purpose or will behind it so as he let it go it was carried away by the wind like vapor before sinking a little into the ground.

The next grave was a double headstone, big and solid and made to look something like a triangle on its side. In the center were the words Stilinski-Yovanova, his father’s name—his name—and his mother’s maiden. To the left was the name Noah, to the right, Claudia. Dancing along the borders of the stone was the intricate details of their combined rune-tattoo, a _varneighie_ symbol which was the public symbol of their accomplishments in sharing each other’s magic. Only people who believed they were truly soulmates did such a thing; tying each other’s lives together so intimately that when Claudia succumbed to the disease that had ruined her mind, Noah’s mind had gone, too.

“It was inevitable,” He whispered, pushing a little magic into the ground for them, feeling the pulse of it combined with the magic he’d given _Dedushka’s_ dry bones. Stiles unscrewed the lid of his vodka and took a swig, hating the taste of it in his mouth, the way the alcohol dissipated in his throat and made his mouth feel dry even though it was just wet. With the flavor of it there, burning in his throat and belly, he tipped the bottle and poured a stream over the grave’s he’d blessed. He couldn’t remember a specific thing about either of his parents. He couldn’t remember the smell of his mother’s hair o the sound of his father’s laughter. He did have memories of them, though. He could remember the indistinguishable shape of his father’s face as he screamed in Stiles’s face, demanding to know what Stile had done in his strange mix of broken Polish and English. It had been the only time Stiles had ever seen his father cry. He could remember his parents playing dominoes in the kitchen with the shopping channel playing in the background. Or the way his mother would bake bread with him, making it from scratch, teasing Stiles as they pounded at the brown dough. Big moments, or small ones. Like how his father and mother had crazily attacked him, screaming that he was a demon, that it was his fault, that they wanted him dead. Their minds had already been insane from the disease by then.

He tried picturing them, their faces, their personalities. He came up only with shadowed and made up figures that pulled at his chest and rose a furry in his belly to rival the warmth of the liquor.  

Stiles could remember the story of his they met. It was probably the strongest memory he had about them and they hadn’t even been the ones to tell him. He’d been too young to ask before they’d gotten sick. They’d been a strong couple but not a heavily affectionate one, they didn’t talk openly about how they met, lean into each other, steal kisses or hold hands under tables. They simply lived in each other’s lives together, constantly talking, constantly laughing, playing dominoes or going out for hikes, sharing each other’s magic as one would breathe. That had been their intimacy, the intimacy of the mind, his _Babushka_ had told him, not of passion. It wasn’t until they were dead and buried for three years did he overhear _Babushka_ telling his brother Mickey how their parents had met.

Claudia had been born in Russia and had come over with her parents to America when she was ten. A year later her father had died and she and her mother didn’t have enough money to go back to their homeland. To learn English, _Babushka_ had taken a class from a half-Polish, half French immigrant witch with a son named Noah. The two met as children and fell in love as children and were impossible to separate for very long. Before they turned seventeen they were teasing their magic against one another, blending the two seamlessly to create one well of power they both drew from. Stiles could remember the way _Babushka_ talked about his parents, half dazed and half proud, talking about the two of them as if they were magic in and of themselves.

“But what is varneighie?” Mickey had asked, as Stiles sat, unnoticed and silent at the top of the steps and listening to them talk.

“Stupid boy.” _Babushka_ had drawled. It sounded like she was lighting another cigarette. “Have you learned nothing, you? You are worse than that brother of yours, and he is not even _proper_.”

Soulmates, Stiles had wanted to say, but he knew better than to speak up and give away his hiding place. _Babushka_ had not tolerated ease dropping. Varneighie only happened when two people knew each other so well that their magic—their lifeblood, their thoughts made manifest, their intentions and spirits—recognized each other and blended. It couldn’t happen without the two people being so equal to each other. If one person was more dominant than the other, compensating for what the other lacked, their magic would engulf their partners’ and snuff it out. The only thing similar to it in the world was the bond created by a mage child and parent; in the course of nine months as life grew, a magical bond grew too. It allowed the baby to learn magic along with the workings of the world, a mental bond that also helped the parent make sure nothing was damaged when an infant reached for its magic during a tantrum.

Stiles blinked away memories and turned to the next tombstone. It was his own. _Mieczyslaw Stilinski_. An empty grave for a boy who was legally dead after 10 years of being missing. He’d never seen it before, never had the morbid curiosity to come back to Beacon Hills just to look at it. Now, he realized he was numb to the sight of it. It was simple and tiny with the symbol of a tree, 9 deep roots framing the bottom ledge. A symbol to warn other mages of how he’d gotten his magic, showing that he was _real_ magic, but a borrowed power connected to the local Nemeton. _In death, his more alive_ it said along the top, in English. Both an insult and a promise.

Stiles walked past it without pouring magic or vodka.

The next grave was _Babushka’s_. It was almost identical to _Dedushka’s_ in that it was made out of cement and held the usual magical grave-markings. Her power—stronger than average—and the Cyrillic words: _Sorrow can hold her no more in its gravity_. Soon enough it would probably share her husbands cracked, pock-marked surface but for now, it was pristine. The grass around it looked fresh.

He placed the vodka on the top of her grace and reached into his inside jacket pocket to grab the small packet of wilding climbing rose seeds he’d grabbed from a random Walmart back at home. He got onto his knees and punched his fingers through the dirt near the grave and placed a single seed into each. He did it all around the grave till all the seeds were gone. He covered the holes back up with dirt, pouring vodka into each of the holes and as he pushed magic into the ground so the current of clean alcohol turned into distilled water. He whispered his prayer, “It was inevitable” as his magic pushed heavy into the ground. Within seconds green sprouts moved to push at the dirt. The vines grew, began climbing over the grave and its stone. As the flowers bloomed from buds, the roses grew no more.

He stood, turning to the last grave. His brother's grave. It was more a plaque than a tombstone, set into the ground with grass growing along its trim. It said _Mikhail Stilinski_ , giving a date of birth, a date of death, and under it “ _He will be missed_ ” in English.

Stiles spit impulsively onto the grave, vicious and angry. He felt the sneer twist at his face as if he couldn’t decide to frown or not. “Mickey, you let humans design your grave,” He sneered.

He dropped to his knees and put the vodka to the side, his fingers finding the edges of the grave marker. He wished he could push his hands across the grave’s surface, twisting the metal lettering with his magic so the grave looked like something his family would have recognized, had they still been alive. He hated that they put birth and death dates on it. To a witch, it didn’t matter how long a lifespan was. Dead was inevitable; it’s what someone does with their life that should be remembered.

“He will be missed.” Stiles mocked, letting his fingers fall away from the plaque. Who would miss him? Who? Mickey had been the last of them—Stiles didn’t count as family anymore, not since he abandoned his remaining relatives to be a Hunter. He’d run. Let them all think he was dead. Friends, maybe? He could remember Mickey had been close to a Banshee and an Oni. Maybe them.

He grabbed for the flowers that had been left there, wrapped in paper and twine. Roses and a cluster of—

Stiles flinched, his fingers jerking away from the touch of purple flowers. It looked almost like lavender, with tiny bell-like buds and yellow tinted centers where the nectar sat. It smelled sicky, sweet. He took a deep breath of it, letting the smell fill his lungs as he sat at on his heels. “You will be missed,” He said softly, tracing the paper and wax wrapping that that surrounded the wild wolfsbane flowers.

He wondered, exactly, who would miss Mickey. Who had paid off the stone and its human marker? Who had left the strange, tell-tale flowers? He set them aside, careful not to touch the wilting purple buds. He bent over the grave and tried to look for any more signs. The grass looked like it had been pinned down and there was only freshly turned dirt underneath. He forcefully pried the plaque from the ground, ripping out the metal spiked underneath, tearing it up with a heavy grunt. There was nothing under the plaque. He put the heavy stone back with a careless gesture. He put the flowers back and poured vodka and magic over the grass. The words “It was inevitable” didn’t come as easily as they had for the rest of his family.

He wanted to leave. It itched at him, how bad he wanted to walk out of Clayton’s cemetery and never come back. But he didn’t. He had run away before. Because of it, he was still running away. Constantly looking over his shoulder as if he was missing something, forgotten something. Maybe if he stayed, that feeling would go away… maybe the shame and despair would go away if he mourned his family. Maybe the bitterness and fury would leave his soul. Even if that bitterness and fury was filling him right now, making him glance at the world as if it were nothing but the tragic stage of his self-pitying life.

He forced himself to sit down and drink his vodka. Half of it was gone already, given to his family, but he had to finish off the rest before he left. Technically he was also supposed to cry and release his emotions and his magic during this time—but his family’s bones deserved grief, not furry, to nourish them.

Stiles had never been much of a drinker. He liked the feeling of being drunk but he just didn’t like what it took to get there or how easy it was to go overboard. But as he held the glass to his lips and let the liquor pour down his throat into his firey stomach, he felt better. Especially as he put the vodka bottle down and breathed in through his nose, feeling the taste of vodka everywhere.

His phone rang halfway through his mourning process and he answered it without looking. “What?”

“Bad time?” Allison asked.

“I’m mourning.”

She sighed at him. “And how is that going?”

“My brother seems to have joined with a local werewolf pack here.” Stiles felt the sneer on his face, his eyes catching the purple gleam of the poisonous wolfsbane again.

“That…” Allison paused, always the diplomatic one. “Is a very serious accusation.” She said carefully. Witches and werewolves did not typically get along with one another and when they did, it was generally meant they were trying to sneakily kill one another. The Stilinski side of his family had a long, long history with werewolves though, and his mother had taken up the mantle when she married Noah. It was because of werewolves that his family was dead. It was because of werewolves that he and his brother were orphaned. Because of werewolves… everything was because of fucking werewolves. That his brother would decide to ally himself with another pack who occupied the territory—to pimp out his magic—Stiles found the bottle at his lips again. He put it down with a heavy clunk into the earth.

“And yet, there is wild wolfsbane on his grave.” Stiles looked away, towards the other family plots in the cemetery. “And I bet that if I looked at his body right now, I’d find signs of their burial traditions.” He found that the vodka bottle was back to his lips again, his throat taking the harsh liquid greedily. When he let the bottle go, a bit of it poured down his chin and into his facial hair. “He was part of a pack.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Don’t tell me what I do and do not know!” He yelled. His throat ached from the force of it. His magic trembled like the legs of a new colt.

Allison was quiet on her end. Then, with strength, she said, “I’ll talk to Dad about it. I’ll get you an extended leave, just be careful not to give out your identification number to any of the cops there. You aren’t reported to be on assignment so the Hunters will think you’re freelancing.”

Stiles closed his eyes, putting his aching forehead onto his knees. He was glad that he was talking to Allison instead of Kira or Chris. Chris would have never allowed Stiles to do a freelance job that would, inevitably, result in a vendetta. He would have monitored Stile’s process throughout, demanding calls and reports and check-ins and paperwork. And Kira would have demanded evidence, tried talking him out of it, told him he needed someone else to figure out what was going on with Mickey’s death. She says things like “be careful” and “don’t do this, it’s not healthy”. Allison though? She gave him the time he needed. She got it. They’d fought together, bled for each other, killed for each other. She understood, even if she didn’t know what was going on his soul.

That was the funny thing about being a soldier, about living a dangerous life filled with murder and horror; family became the people you would do anything to protect. They’re the people you hold close to at night and the people who make you smile and realize, for a second, that there are bright and happy moments to cling to, moments of mundanity, of laughter, of simple actions and simpler joy. That’s what Kira and Scott gave him. Comrades though? That was a deeper connection, a true, ultimate understanding that needed no words—something forged by trust and lots of pain. Comrades, Stiles knew, were the people who would never consider telling you not to do something, they are the people who know you have to do it.

“Where will you be staying?” She asked.

“Motel.” He pressed his forehead harder into his knee, feeling the stretch in his hamstrings and his thigh as he doubled over himself. “No—I’m too drunk. My car.”

She hummed. “Scott asked for you, you know.”

“Yeah? How’s he doin'?”

“He’s still recovering from the last round of chemo—but, good, I think. He’s doing good. You know him, he’s never not cheerful. He’s been glowing since the baby—”

A gust of air left Stiles’s lungs. “Kira had the baby?”

“Yeah. Just this morning. They tried calling but your phone was out of reception. Check your voicemail sometime.” She sounded like she was smiling. “Took ‘bout twelve hours but she got the damn thing out, squealing and near full energy-spark. It’ll be a powerful little girl.”

“Another girl.” Stiles lifted himself up, suddenly sad for the first time since entering the cemetery. His bottle had tipped over and there was only a bit of alcohol left, which he took in greedily. It felt appropriate. He couldn’t properly mourn for his birth family. He could hardly remember them after a good fifteen years of not seeing or talking to them. They were nothing more than an abstract concept to him now, something he had never connected to in the first place… but he _had_ hesitated, hadn’t he? He was more than sure that he’d hesitated in signing the papers and joining the Hunters. But hesitation didn’t really mean shit in the long run. He’d still abandoned them, still let them think he was dead and gone. He hadn’t realized what an awful thing that could but until he found his place and his family within the Hunters. He couldn’t ever imagine abandoning them or not talking to them every day. Not for all the opportunity in the world.

And yet… he hadn’t been there for the birth of Scott and Kira’s third little girl. He hadn’t been there with Chris and Scott, teasing Kira as Allison made faces and tried to tell Kira to breathe through the pain. He wasn’t there to hold his new godchild or to tease his other two godchildren about the responsibilities of being an older sibling. He hadn’t even been there to see Scott light up and hold his new daughter in his arms for the first time. To brag about the new baby girl as if she was his own creation and feel the joy of new life.

Instead, he’d been getting drunk in a fucking cemetery and plotting a halfhearted revenge. It wasn’t necessarily abandonment but for the first time since he had come here to Beacon Hills, he felt like truly mourning. The rage was gone. The feeling of leaving something behind was stronger than ever.

“I… what’s her name?”

“Scott named her Lulu.”

Stiles barked out a surprised laugh. “Of course he did. Kira let him?”

“She was too drugged up to object, really,” Allison said, voice dry.

“Take a picture and send it to me?” He asked, hopeful.

“No. Text Kira and Scott yourself.” He said nothing. “You’ll be home soon, Stiles. You’ll be the best godfather and uncle that Lulu can ask for, just like you have been for Lila and Lilly. You’ll be here for every birthday. You’ll hold her when she’s sad, tell her stories about how much an idiot her father is, tease her when she complains about how mean her older siblings are. You’ll sing her songs and talk to her in Russian and Polish, lull her to sleep and talk to her about boys when she’s older.”

He realized he was crying, then. “Thanks, Alli.”

“Keep in touch, Stiles.”

He hung up then, staggering drunkenly upwards to his feet, grabbing onto a random grave marker to keep his balance. He left the bottle where it was, unbothered by the idea of leaving it as he walked to his car. He staggered a lot, fell over even more, but he got to his rental eventually. He rearranged himself into the driver’s seat and closed his eyes. As he was drifting off, he realized he’d never put magic into the ground over Mickey’s grave. A subtle little dig, a petty action to show how upset he was that his brother would pimp himself out to a werewolf pack.

“You’ll be missed.” He slurred, shoving his cheek into the leather. In a way, it did reflect his brother’s strange life. Mickey… Mickey had been the kind of guy that would be remembered. The tear the leather caught smeared against his face, feeling wet for a few seconds it took him to go under.

 


	2. "I killed Mickey"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles meets Derek

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I reedited this, so hopefully it's a little better.  
> \--This chapter is super short. I started thinking about it my way home from work, and I think I have a semi decent idea where this is going to go. So, luck.  
> 

Stiles woke up with a hangover from hell. He squeezed his eyes shut tightly, trying to block out the light—the sounds. Birds and—tapping. Tapping had woken him up.

Very slowly and very carefully, Stiles squinted his eyes open to let in light. He was in the rental. Everything smelled like vodka. His body was twisted in a weird position—as if he’d tried making himself comfortable in the seats by lying down across the center console. Above him—tapping on the window. A cop. Stiles groaned, rubbing his face with his hands and trying to not feel nauseous at the smell of alcohol soaked into his fingers. “Yeah!” He yelled, twisting enough to get the gear shift out of his hip. “What!”

“Sir, are you okay? You car has been parked here for some time. I need to ask you to leave.” The cop said, voice muffled by the window.

“Sure, sure.” He reached deep inside of himself for his magic, feeling the warmth of it resting in his chest. A few seconds of breathing and focusing on the sensation of his lie force and he felt his hangover receding enough to allow him to sit up. He nodded to the officer, who looked young and stern and more than a little annoyed with Stiles. When he saw Stiles, though, his eyes widened a fraction and his hand jumped towards his gun, resting on its holster. His mouth opened, closed, and opened again. Stiles honestly didn’t give a shit. He gave the officer a hungover smile and turned the key in the ignition before peeling the car out of the side of the road. He did, however, look into the review mirror to see the man speaking into his shoulder mic. Probably asking if people can come back from the dead.

It was a mistake, coming back to Beacon Hills. He could feel it already.

He had options—none as important as coffee and wifi—but he had different ways this could play out. He could take his plane home and never return to Beacon Hills. It would mark an end to this period in his life, to his biological family, and give him an unresolved sense of closure. But it would be a peaceful way to end all of this, being home to greet Scott’s new baby, to keep scrolling through online dating websites and do his missions with Allison and Chris. He could go on as he always did, pretending that he didn’t even _have_ a brother, a twin. It was an option. One that was very real and exceptionally unappealing after seeing the wolfbane flowers left on the grave. Those fucking flowers.

His family had been bound to a werewolf pack. His parents had gone insane over it. The Wolfpack had ended up dying in a horrible massacre. Stiles and Mickey’s future—their purpose, their childhood joy—was dead and gone because of it all. Stiles had ended up joining the Hunters to slaughter the beasts who took advantage of their superior strength and abilities… and apparently, Mickey had decided to continue their family’s legacy of being pack Emissaries; witches who protected, who used their magic in defense of a land werewolves protected with claws and fangs.

No… if he went back home he’d never let the fucking flowers go. That’s how Hunters turned into psychopaths like Kate Argent. Too much bottled up rage, too many twisted thoughts. No, he’d stay here, figure out his shit. See how his damned fool of a brother got mixed up with a werewolf pack. See how he died in the first place.

Mickey’s decision made sense, in a twisted way. His family had devoted themselves to the Hale Pack. His parents had erected Varneighie wards around the entirety of the Hale Compound to keep the Pack safe—a warding system that had been so woven into his parent’s magic that his mother and father had gone insane from its breaking. And then all the Hale’s died. Stiles and Mickey had haunted the old compound like ghosts, protecting a land that no longer had meaning, trying to rebuild his parent’s wards as if it could somehow rebuild their broken lives… so yeah, Stiles could see the logic behind it, how Mickey would have stayed to protect a land once Stiles was gone and resume his place as Emissary, even if it wasn’t for the Hales.

Mickey had been all about smiles and jokes and laughter. So yeah, it made sense. Just like it made sense why Stiles would decide to join the Hunters. Not that he’d really been given much of a choice, now that he thought about it. When he was eighteen he’d still been roaming around the old Hale Compound with Mickey, resurrecting his parent’s Varneighie wards and creating magical weapons. That was around the time that the Satomi Pack had gotten serious about taking the land for themselves and were attacking him and Mickey in earnest. There had been so much blood spilled that the Alpha Law had come in and Hunters were delegated to keep the peace during a small accord. Stiles had been put on trial for his “overzealous vicious protection” and offered Stiles two options: either go to prison for the rest of his life or become a Hunter.

Stiles had hesitated for the briefest of moments, thinking about his life in Beacon Hills. How ostracized he had felt, being the only mundane human in a family full of mages. How his _Babushka_ blamed him for his parent’s deaths and never let him forget she hated him. How people in town treated him like a leper and always forgot that he even existed, much less that he was standing there or talking to them. How his only peace was found defending an old massacre sight for a family that was all dead.  

It had been so easy, signing away his life. And after that… well, life just got easier. He hadn’t looked back once. Sure, he’d thought about calling his brother a few times, thought about reaching out just to let him know he was okay… but then he got swamped with one project or another, life got in the way. Suddenly he was hearing that he was officially being proclaimed dead… 10 years passed by quickly.

Now Mickey was dead. From fucking werewolves.

Stiles went straight through the light as it turned green and started to look around. He found himself moving downtown, going through one way and looking for a place to meet his hungover needs. A Starbucks would do, honestly, but he came across a little coffee shop tucked in between a local art gallery and an antique store called _Addicted to Caffeine_ and decided it would damn well be good enough.

He parked and made a list on his phone of the things he needed to do:

_Coffee._

_Check out Mick’s apt/house and grab some shit._

_Check out the old Compound._

_Figure out what Pack has taken out—see what they know about Mick._

_Find Mick’s killer—kill back?_

He stared for a while, wondering if that was it, that was all. The list seemed about as shallow as his emotional state at the moment. It would do, though.

He grabbed his laptop case from the back seat and headed towards the coffee shop, hoping to all the Gods and Goddesses in the universe that there was free wifi in there. It was a pleasant enough place, better than corporate Starbucks. A little bell rang as he walked through and it was dimly lit as if expected hungover customers. The walls were a dusky bull with little murals painted on them where huge bookcases didn’t dominate the walls. The couches and chairs were all mismatched and comfortable. There were lots of outlets and people on laptops—so, big win.

A beautiful, busty blond woman was fiddling with a cappuccino machine behind the counter. More than her beautiful looks and red lipstick, he noticed the way her nostrils flared as he walked through. Noticed the strange ease in her movements, the casual, lupine grace. The even more casual, impossible beauty of her. As she turned she plastered on a smile. He watched as that smile grew brittle and then died in her eyes.

Stiles was going to have to do something to change his looks if literally _everyone_ in this damn town took one look at him and recognized him. He knew Mickey had been a popular guy and this was a small town but serious—it was going to get annoying. For now, though, he could only smile his best, brightest smile, hoping it would smooth over the sudden awkwardness between them. She didn’t seem to appreciate it, her body flinching from him and the counter as a horribly strained sound broke from deep in her throat. He’d never been looked at like that before: like he’d personally broken something inside of them.

“I’ll have a, uh,” He hurriedly looked away from her to the blackboard where the menu had been written above her head. It only took him a second to see what he wanted. With a smile that felt more like himself, he said, “A large Back From the Dead, please.”

Tears were filling her large, hooded eyes. Her chin was starting to shake.

  
That’ll be three seventeen, sir.” A man said, having walked from the main sitting area. He wasn’t wearing an apron and he did have the look of a barista but he slipped behind the counter with ease and familiarity, punching buttons on the iPod by the till as the beautiful blond fled to the back. He was also impossibly beautiful, his skin a kind of warm brown shade that had Stiles thinking of long summer days and coconut coil. “Cash or card?”

“Cash.” He put a five down. “Keep the change.”

“Your name?” The man asked, lifting an eyebrow. The dim light from above reflected off his eyes as he moved to grab a cup, a sharpee already ready and waiting in his other hand.

“Wolfe.” Stiles winked at him. “What’s your wifi password?”

“CoffeeAddict2319.” The man said, already making the coffee. He was stoic and smooth with his face and motion, obviously very familiar with everything behind the bar. “I’ll call your name in a second.”

“It’s okay, I’ll wait here.” He watched the werewolf stiffen a little, shoulder’s lifting. “No one else is waiting.” Stiles leaned forward, watching the man’s movements.

It was hard sometimes, to tell a werewolf from a human. Even harder to tell when they were bitten and not born, but there were always signs to look for. Usually, they had a presence about them, a powerful look or feel. He’d guess that these two were made, not born, there wasn’t enough ferocity to them.

He wondered, idly, how many of the Pack there had to be in two if he happened to stumble upon them this easily. He needed files—needed to get into the Hunter database to figure out who this pack was. But if he took his sweet time with everything it could be weeks before he got back home. That—and he’d never been one for patience. Allison almost always did the preliminary meetings and recognizance because he had no tact. “I need a meeting with your Alpha,” He said, voice low. He traced the grain of the bar with his fingertip. “Here—with witnesses not in the Pack.”

The man turned with the coffee ready in his hand. He placed it down in front of Stiles with a sharp, knowing look. “No.”

“No?” Stiles laughed, startled. That was cause for suspicion, right there. If he was technically on the job he could have this ‘wolf in handcuffs for twenty-four hours without the need for any more evidence. “And why is that?”

“Because, Mickey, what you’re doing is fucking cruel.”

Stiles paused, looking him over a little more closely. He had a broad face and warm eyes, huge muscled frame. He was taller than Stiles by a good few feet. “Mickey is dead.” He watched the ‘wolf tilt his head, the only physical sign that he was listening and smelling for a lie. Not that Stiles would give himself away if he _was_ lying, he’d been trained in boot-camp to lie to werewolves. “I want a diplomatic meeting with your Alpha before I bring this goddamn town crumbling around your fucking feet.” The anger startled him a bit in its intensity, his magic flaring at the warmth of it. Being back in Beacon Hills was like being a teenager all over again. His smile, he knew, was cruel. “I want to know how my brother died,” He grabbed his cup. “Two hours, ‘wolf.” He warned.

Stiles turned and walked towards one of the chairs near an outlet. He slammed his cup and laptop case on the coffee table with a little more force than he intended. Ignoring the stares, he got, he started to set up, booting his laptop and connecting to the wifi.

He checked his emails first. Allison, Goddess that she was, had already sent him the Beacon Hills Territory files with a small message: _only gave it a glance over but it’s interesting. You never told me your family use to be Emissaries_. He clicked on the link and logged into the portal, catching up on the files that told case studies on supernatural creatures, events, brokered treaties, initiations and deaths. He glossed over the known history.

An official Emissary treaty was brokered under Alpha and Emissary Law two years after Noah’s parents moved into Town. The Alpha at the time was Cypress Hale, a dominant male who remarried twice. His third child, Talia Hale, became Alpha when he willingly turned down his title and five years after that, when Noah and Claudia’s varneighie came into play, the two became the official Emissaries to the Hale Pack, about 134 strong. There was paperwork placed in for the warding system and how it’s extreme-ness was recommended in light of the recent attacks: Gerard and Kate Argent, Hunter’s gone rogue, had maddened an Alpha named Deucalion into a feral rage and was killing off his pack, encouraging other local wolves to do the same. Satomi Pack was backtracking into the recesses of their territory but Hale couldn’t—and wouldn’t—move. Apparently, there was some kind of confrontation with an Alpha named Ennis and a human girl associated with the Pack. Her death was officially written off as “changing bite” despite the fact that there was no preliminary paperwork for her to be changed and no Alpha Law O.K.

Stiles was in there, too. Barley even two days after girl’s death he had bound himself to the local Nemeton, changing the force of the magic in the entire Northern American Hemisphere. Deucalion was amassing his famous “Alpha Pack” that threatened the very nature of the Alpha Laws. Stiles could remember all of that vaguely, how hyped up his parents and Talia Hale had been about the Hunters coming into their lands to hunt down Deucalion and his band of renegades. Then Claudia and Noah started to show signs of mental degradation. There was a report put in by Talia saying the wards were degrading, too. And some unknown force was pushing the ward-boundaries. They put in an appeal to the Hunters, occupied by the Alpha Pack, for help. The help was denied. Then a Magical Child Welfare report about his parent’s nearly killing Stiles in a fit of insane rage. Then the Hunter reports of the Hale Massacre. Apparently—and this was new to Stiles—a few of the Hales had survived. Laura Hale, Derek Hale, Peter Hale, Cora Hale, and Malia Hale. Laura Hale became the new Hale Alpha, powers passed down by death-rites, and Peter Hale was placed in a long-term ward in Beacon Hills Hospital. Laura, Derek, and Cora fled—the two oldest to New York, the youngest to New Mexico to join a stable Pack affiliated with the Hales. Malia Hale was reported missing—but apparently several years ago she’d been found sheltered by a human family who reported her after she shifted in the car and caused an almost fatal car-crash. She was still with the family. Peter’s medical bills were always paid on time.

Then Laura died. About seven years back, she’d come to Beacon Hills after the Alpha Law sanctioned Satomi’s paperwork to claim the old Compound and the Nemeton as her own. In the death report, Satomi claimed that she was stopped every time by a warding system and a rogue mage. This particular report never mentioned him by name, but Stiles knew it was Mickey. There was no doubt.

He glossed over Laura Hale’s death report to look at the others. Derek Hale—who became Alpha—put in the paperwork to claim his territory again. There was a legal battle over the land with the Satomi Pack, who claimed it legally, too. Cora Hale came up from New Mexico to support the claim. Mickey was initiated through the proper rituals and some paperwork as the Hale Emissary. There were claims of magical healing on Peter Hale, none of which worked. Then the paperwork for three new made betas, all 18 at the time. The first boy had a medical history and child-welfare rap-sheet longer than Stile’s juvenile record. The second was a girl with a life debilitating epileptic problem. The last a boy whose sister died when he was seven and simply wanted the security of Pack life. All in all, a bureaucratic dream-team of made-werewolves.

Mickey’s choices, he had no doubt. He would have chosen the same.

Stiles closed his eyes and leaned back, not looking further into the reports as he tried to process what he’d read. The Hales were _alive_. More than that, they were the ones that Mickey had given up his magic for. He hadn’t gone and given it to some other opportunistic Pack. No, he’d given it back to the Hales… the Hales… who Stiles had thought were all long dead. Because of him. Because of his parent’s inability.

He… didn’t know what to feel.

He was glad, then, for the distraction as a man sat across from him.

Stiles opened his eyes and smiled. Now, _this_ was a born ‘wolf. This guy was like every other guy Stiles had ever worked with, helped made treaties with, and had shot and killed. Physically he was gorgeous, nearly otherworldly, with heavy muscles and perfectly symmetrically features that spoke of some Latin or Spanish heritage despite his pale, ashy skin. But it was the glare that synced it. Only people born with an instinct to kill to protect and a body that lets them tear through flesh could give such a murderous glare. It was like a promise, his stare. His face was set into a deep scowl, heavy eyebrows drew down, lower face covered in an unkempt beard. He was staring at Stiles as if he was trying not to murder and cry at the same time. It was weirdly vulnerable in its furry.

“Wow,” Stiles smiled. “An hour. A new record, I gotta say.”

He watched the man’s Adam's apple bob up and down as he tried to keep his lips from peeling back on his teeth. “Who—” His voice was rough and creaky. The ‘wolf cleared his throat. “Who are you?” He looked like he already knew, though. Like the big buff guy—the abused one, or the lonely one?—and the blond bombshell, this guy knew who he was.

“Hmmm…” Stiles snapped his laptop shut and set it aside on the leather couch. He leaned forward, staring at the man who had to be Derek Hale. They’d met a few times as children, played in the tall meadow-grass of the Hale Compound behind the Great House. He’d been a bright, happy kid, prone to overprotectiveness and a cocky attitude. It was almost a shame to see that bright youth stripped away because of death and torment. “Who am I?” He smiled at the man, watching Derek Hale squeeze his eyes shut tightly as if to physically block the image of Stiles out of his mind. “Mickey never told you about me?” Nevermind about remembering—no one in this damn town ever remembered Stiles. He could walk into a room and not be seen. Talk to his parents and then have the conversation forgotten an hour later.

“He said… you went missing when you were 18. He thought you were dead. After… so long.”

“Well—to him, I was dead.” Stiles was surprised at the level of apathy in his tone, his anger hidden. Apparently, so was Derek. The guy snapped his eyes open, his glare intensifying to entirely new levels. Stiles shrugged at his anger. “My life is better without Mickey and _Babushka_ in it, just like I’m sure his life was better without me—”

“ _You know nothing about him_.” Derek snarled, his voice growing subvocal. He leaned forward as people started to look over. A few of the smarter ones quickly fled the coffee shop. “He mourned you all the time—walked to the Nemeton every time he could find it—talked about you, cried about you. He always said ‘what would Stiles do’ when he was trying to be brave! Sometimes he acted like you were still there even, he wanted to, wanted to…” Derek gave a horrible, shaky breath that weirdly had Stiles near to tears as the Alpha’s anger deflated. “He wanted to name our first child after you.” Derek’s voice turned broken near the end as he said ‘child’.

Ah, well, that made things rather awkward. Stiles felt a low boiling rage fill his stomach but he kept it down, kept it from entering his magic and showing on his face. If only for the grieving werewolf in front of him. He hunted werewolves for a living. He chased down rogue omegas, chased down Alphas who bit random, unsuspecting teens without permission or information, killed packs who broke the Accords. But his brother… his damn fool of a brother had tried to start a _family_ with one. He had gotten in so deep he was dead because of them. After everything, his parents had gone through. After _everything_ —

At Stiles low, scornful snort, Derek’s eyes flashed the tiniest amount of red. It was gone before Stiles could take it as a challenge, however, and he had to be a little impressed with the amount of willpower the werewolf had. Most ‘wolves, especially Alphas—especially the Derek he remembers as a child—were too protective to let a comment about family slip by without retaliation. “Fine.” Stiles spat out. His anger had nowhere to go so he shot it out like venom from his mouth. “He held on to my memory. Whoo-de-fucking-do. Great. I don’t give a fuck—”

Derek smirked at the lie. Fucking werewolf.

“—I moved on with my life. The only reason why I’m back in this shit-show of a town talking to a fucking _mongrel_ is because I owe a blood debt.”

“You had no blood tie, to begin with.” Derek hissed. They were really attacking attention now. People were staring, taking out their phones to record them.

Stiles felt the wooden floor beneath his feet crack and dent a little—but he ignored it, trying to keep in his power without looking down. His willpower would come crashing around him if he looked down. He’d never felt this out of control before. “Yeah—no, I never did. Thanks for that. I was born without the magic and the blood ties. Doesn’t mean I don’t have the right to avenge my brother’s death.”

“A brother you let mourn you. Suddenly you have familial love.” Derek sneered, his upper lip parting from his teeth to show a straight, glossy white row of teeth. Derek Hale used to have braces, he remembered suddenly.

“It’s more for me than him, thanks.”

“Selfish. You're so fucking _selfish_.” Derek hissed. “He always talked about you. How brave you were. How strong. How fucking funny. All I see is some tired, worn down Hunter that smells like herbs and blood and metal. A selfish fucking prick who _suddenly_ cares about his family now that they’re all gone.”

 _I’m going to kill this bastard_ , Stiles thought, clenching his fists to physically restrain his magic from flying everywhere. “It’s the least I can do.”

“Yeah. Literally the least.”

“I have a fucking blood debt! Tell me who killed my brother and I can be out of this shitty ass town.”

“If that’s all you want,” Derek snapped, “Fine. You won’t be here long. I killed Mickey. Now get out of my town before I rip your throat out.” His teeth were growing a little bit too long to be human. “With my teeth.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Creative feedback welcome. Also, I have no Beta, so there are some typos (obviously, your reading this at the end so you've noticed.) I'm actually really looking for one, so if anyone wants to beta for me?


	3. A Busy Morning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles learns that Derek killed his brother--as tension starts to raise the Hunters are called in to help and Stiles realizes that his brother's death might not be as black and white as he thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Nother chapter. Enjoy. And I'm still looking for a beta if anyone wants to do it. Just so you don't have to read the damn typos anymore -.-''  
> \--also reedited

Stiles had about three seconds to notice that the braces hadn’t fixed Derek’s bunny like front teeth before he was launching himself over the coffee table with a raw scream. His shin banged against the low table, he felt his barely touched cold coffee splash against his leg—and then his hands were around Derek Hale’s scruffy neck. He felt the low vibrations of the Alpha’s growl through his fingers.

“You killed him!” Stiles screamed, trying to get into a better position. “You fucking killed him!”

He was thrown sideways by big hands. His training kicked in, making him roll. He smacked into an occupied chair before he was up again, magic in hands. It was a vicious feeling, the magic, hot and liquidy and burning both in his gut and in his palms. The sparks of it crackled with little pings of untapped energy as he shoved his fists through the air and felt the waves pulse out…  only nothing happened. The waves dissipated before they could even touch Derek, fizzling out to crash against the other people in the coffee shop—fritzing out electronics, sending gusts of air, knocking back furniture and making people scream in shock and pain. Derek’s jelled hair moved, as if touched by wind, then nothing.

Stiles magic had never failed him before.

“Yeah, now I’m gunna kill you.” Derek’s eyes were red, his mouth full of fangs as he came at Stiles. Both of them knew who would win in a fair fist fight.

Stiles dodged a swiping hand. He grabbed the first thing he could reach—some screaming woman’s coffee—and chucked the steaming contents out in a wave. It hit Derek straight in the face, leaving red burns on pale skin, and gave Stiles enough time to get a couch between him and the snarling werewolf. “You fucker!” Stiles yelled. “You were trying to make a family with him—weren’t you? Weren’t you? Fist kid and all that bullshit. He loved you! And you just—just fucking kill him.” He threw more things. Someone’s phone, which was conveniently held out to take a video of the fight. Some more coffee, less fresh. A book left on the table. Then an empty wooden chair. Each one Derek dodged and swiped out of the air as they circled the couch.

After the chair, Derek gave up and launched himself over the couch. Then two betas—the ones he’d seen earlier—were suddenly there, getting in the way. The big one was grabbing Derek, pinning him awkwardly to the couch from behind, pushing his bigger weight into the snarling Alpha so big claws wouldn’t reach Stiles. And the busty blond was there too, standing in front of Stiles, not daring to physically touch him as she kept the Alpha and the other beta out of Stile’s line of sight. Her hands were held up, her face set into a strange, old pain as she moved left and right, always blocking his path of sight. “You fucking kill him!” Stiles screamed because it felt good to scream.

“I loved him! More than you ever did—you deserter!” Derek screamed back.

“Yeah, I left! But I didn’t kill him!” Stiles’s blood was boiling. His magic broke the ground at every step he took, the little chips of wood floating in the air near his hands. Books, cups, phones, plats, even some laptops were all being flung his way and that as people screamed and ran and tried to take pictures and videos. She didn’t care. All he cared about was the pinned down Alpha trying desperately to get his beta off him. “What’s fucking worse—hu? Hu?”

There was something wrong with his magic, he couldn’t get it to attack the ‘wolves. He couldn’t shove the blond out of the way with a force-wave, couldn’t even get a book to fly and hit the big beta upside the head. Ay time he tried to direct anything magical at them, it harmlessly fell away, the effect hitting the panicked pedestrians in the shop instead.

The blond in front of him made a soft, sad noise in her throat, drawing Stile’s attention to her. Her face was pinched and she was crying again. “He had to. He had to.” She said, the tears leaking down in heavy black streaks thanks to her makeup. “Everyone loved Mickey. Derek loved Mickey… but…”

Derek roared. The beta on him jumped off to submit but Derek ignored him in favor of Stiles. The blond girl herself flinched back and stepped aside, her neck bent in an awkward way. That’s all Stiles noticed before he was being rammed into from the side, a furious Alpha knocking him to the ground. The floors cracked and cratered around their impact on the floor, absorbing the shock away from Stile’s body. Floorboards struck up around them in splintered and fragmented angles.

Stiles’s hands came up to Derek’s snarling face, trying to claw as real claws—real, very angry, very hurtful claws—dug into his shoulder. Derek’s face was awful. The sorrow only made his rage seem stronger as Derek unhinged his jaw and roared into Stiles’s face. Hot air and the smell of coffee was everywhere.

“You killed him. You fucking killed him.” Stiles didn’t have the ability to yell anymore. He let his hands drop. He watched Derek’s anguished, furious face. “The last thing my brother ever saw was your stupid fucking face. He was killed by someone he lo-loved.” God, he was going to cry. For the first time, he was going to cry because his brother was dead.

He wasn’t expecting Derek to lower his face and smash his mouth against Stiles’s. There was a sharp clash of teeth, a wet tongue invading his mouth that had the sharpness of toothpaste and the bitterness of coffee. Stiles found himself kissing back.

Stiles had been on many, many dates over the last few years. His only serious relationship had been with Lito—who, after a good three years of passionate sex and fighting and dealing with Lito’s crazy rise to stardom from cheesy soap-operas, decided to leave Stiles for the love of his life, Hernando. From the Christmas cards Stiles got from them every year, Lito and Hernando were living happily in Lost Angeles with Lito’s once beard, Daniella, a great friend. They were all very happy. And Stiles was not. He was on dating apps all the time, going from hook up to hook up and he hadn’t realized… realized how much he’d been craving intimacy until he felt Derek’s desperate, fumbling attempts to mash their mouths together. Until he felt tongue and teeth and something emotional and real you never get from blind dates and internet one-offs. The kind of kiss from a long-lasting relationship from a man who _loves_.

And Stiles knew, he knew Derek wasn’t kissing him. It didn’t matter though. Stiles kissed back with all his might like it was actually Stiles that Derek was kissing.

A crazy, desperate moan escaped Stiles mouth as Derek’s tongue twined with his. Then Derek’s face was gone and Stiles was left panting and wanting and feeling… so, so confused.

“You really think I would have killed him if I had any other choice?” Stiles looked up at Derek’s face, so anguished now that the anger was gone. It was a face of someone who knew death and agony very well. “I have to live with it for the rest of my life.”

“Why?” Stiles hadn’t realized he was crying until Derek flicked one of the tears away with his claws, leaving a little tear in his flesh that burned as bad as his lips.

And that, of course, was when the police arrived.

Stiles and Derek were detained. In separate cars, they were transported to the Beacon Hills County Sheriff’s Department. Stiles had the pleasure of being with the young Deputy who had woken him up in his car that morning. The guy smelled of ash and heat and Stiles knew he wasn’t human. The only thing the Deputy said was, “Busy morning for you, huh?”

Stiles glared, but he couldn’t find the words to say anything.

At the station, Stiles and Derek were put into adjoining cells away from each other. Still handcuffed, Stiles sat on the bench and watched Derek pace back and forth like the caged animal that he was. Somehow, through the processing, they’d both gotten that old anger back—made stronger now that Stiles knew what Derek tasted like, what he felt like hovering over Stile’s body, heavy and needy. Derek had given that to Mickey, given it to him and… what? Decided he needed to die anyway?

“So,” Stiles snarled as the pacing and the silence was getting to be too much. He had no idea how long he’d been in the cell for, at least a few hours. “How’d you do it, huh? Tear up his body with claws? Snap his neck? Oh—what did you threaten to do to me earlier? Tear my throat out? With your teeth?” He sneered.

Derek’s eyes were red but he continued his pacing without showing any other signs that he’d heard Stiles.

“What did he even do? Hu? Did he forget to call? Sleep around? Maybe didn’t give you a good enough birthday present?” When Derek snarled, Stiles pressed on. “Or did you just snap at him for no good reason? Get angry at someone else and snap and decide ‘fuck it, I’m going to kill the guy _I’m going to start and family with’_?” He was screaming again. His voice was getting raw. Stiles didn’t even know if they’d adopted that baby or not. If there was a kid named Stiles hanging around at Derek’s place, unaware one of his dads killed the other.

“Quiet down.” A firm voice said. Stiles turned very slowly to look at the officer standing in the doorway to the jail cell. He looked old and tired, with flakes of white in his kinked up hair. He stood with his hand on his gun, looking from Derek to Stiles and back again. “Hale,” He greeted. “Heard this guy threw the first punch. You pressing charges?”

Stiles snorted. “Are you fucking kidding me? I’m a human! The Accords dictate that no matter who throws the first punch in a fight with a human and a werewolf it’s _always_ the werewolf’s fault! He has superior strength!”

“Not if the fight is between a Level 2 mage and a werewolf, no. And especially not if the fight is between a Hunter and a werewolf, son.” The man gave him a knowing look, frowning at Stiles as if Stiles was the biggest idiot in the world. “Yeah, that’s right. I know who you are, Mieczyslaw Stilinski.”

“You butchered my name,” Stiles muttered, sitting back and leaning against the bars of the cell. For some reason, he hadn’t counted on the Sheriff’s department here to know who he was. Stupid of him. He’d get into some major shit for fighting a werewolf off duty. They might even strip him of his Hunter status for this. The organization took things like personal vendettas very seriously since Kate Argent decided to avenge her crazy old father’s death.

“It’s a mouthful,” the Sheriff said wryly. He turned back to Derek. “Son? Wanna press charges?”

“ _Yes_.”

“For the assault and the damages?”

“Yes. Both.”

Stiles glared over at Derek who had the gall to look almost happy, a kind of fake, vicious grin plastered on his face. He’d finally stopped pacing and was looking at Stiles, grinning like a snake. Stiles winked at him, just because he could.

“Alright. Sounds about right. Derek, your in here till your sister comes to pick you up. You know the rules. You’re not technically at fault here but the town will be mighty displeased with you. I suggest you start making arrangement for a restraining order against this one.” The man shot Stiles a look. “Proper channels, not the local court.”

“I understand perfectly, Sheriff.”

“I understand perfectly, Sheriff.” Stiles mimicked, wishing he could cross his arms. He glared over when Derek snarled, red-eyed and furious again, but Stiles attention was drawn back to the Sheriff.

“Now you will be a bigger problem, I’m afraid. I got your identification off your things in the shop. I have a feeling you won’t get charged with fraud or even falsifying a death certificate, such is the pity. You got powerful friends, Stilinski. Powerful friend who will be mighty upset that you’re on your own personal mission.” Stiles had nothing to say, so he said nothing. “We’ll be contacting your supervisor about the matter. Till then,” The man shrugged, producing keys and letting Derek out. He put useless human-issue cuffs around Derek’s wrists. “Sit tight.”

Chris was not happy. “You were supposed to be coming back this morning.” His voice was doing that emotionless tone that was worse than his yelling. “You were supposed to pay your respects and be home in a few hours.”

“Yeah.” Stiles sighed into the phone the Sheriff had given him. He pressed his forehead into the cold bars of the cell. “Yeah.” Things were looking a lot calmer and a lot stupider now that Derek Hale was gone. He’d been alone for most of the day as the Sheriff tried to contact the Hunter Embassy and get into contact with the North American Field Branch. It would all be a lot easier if Stiles belonged to the usual sect of Hunters—the kinds that had an HQ in a major city with smaller offices dotting smaller cities in the state. Instead, he was part of the Red Gloves, a specialized team that worked in-field with the Accords, Alpha Law, Mage Law, and smaller government subsidiaries that protected both human and supernatural interests. Chris Argent was a bitch to get ahold of.  “I know, Chris… I…”

“Report.” Chris snapped.

Stiles threw his head against the bars once, feeling the satisfying sting of it before he said, “Upon entering the grave site I noticed pack involvement. Wolfbane flowers left on the grave. Working under the assumption and not given the details of living Hales—”

“Classified information under Alpha Law,” Chris said, merciless.

“—I was under the impression that Hale Territory belonged to a different pack and guessed possible werewolf burial practices on the deceased body. In the morning I went to investigate further involvement with said Wolf Pack. I found a member of the local Pack in a coffee shop, _Addicted to Caffeine_ and—”

“You expect me to believe you just stumbled across one? The town isn’t that small, Stiles.”

“No, it’s not. But that’s how it happened. Honest. Maybe there are a lot more of them then are reported.” He said, eager.

“There are six active ‘wolf members of the current Hale Pack. The probability alone that you would just find one as you innocently grabbed a coffee—”

“Hey, I got good luck.” He said, smiling faintly into the bars. “Two betas were present in the coffee shop. I initiated a meeting with the Alpha,” He ignored Chris’s heavy sigh, “And waited in the coffee shop for about an hour as I read on reports. I realized then that the Hales were alive. I then had a civil conversation with Alpha Derek Hale—”

“Civil?”

“—with the intent of finding out about the deceased whereabouts. Things grew heated but there were no fists, claws, or magic involved at this point. I claimed blood-feud rites. He admitted to being my brother’s killer… and an altercation broke out.”

Chris was silent on the other end for a moment. “I’ll look into the ME’s death report and the Sheriff department’s report, too. See what I can find for you. You sure he admitted it?”

“I’ll never forget.”

“Hu. If we work this right I can claim he broke the Accords first and that this is a follow-up case for werewolf violence. It’ll drop your charges at least enough that you won’t be put on the Horns here.” He could hear Chris typing on his end. “You’re hereby officially taken off the follow-up case and are to report back to—”

“Chris. _No_.” Stiles closed his eyes. “No, you can’t. I need to do this.”

“No, you don’t. You’ll get the same kind of closure from getting justice for your brother then you would killing his killer. More, even, since there’s not all that added baggage.”

“No.”

Chris sighed. “You are hereby officially taken off the follow-up case. You are to report back to me as soon as you are released from bail and to stay in town until your trial date. That’ll give you enough time to meet field agent Argent and to fill her in on the details of the case as you have an evaluation from an Accord member.” Chris was muttering. “A case I haven’t even put the paper into yet. Even off duty, you’re a pain in my ass, Stiles.”

Stiles laughed. “Love you, too.”

“This is a path you won’t come back from, Stiles. Killing rogue ‘wolves who’ve gone feral or power crazed is different than this. From everything I’ve pulled up on the Hale family, they’re a solid pack just trying to rebuild their lives after a huge massacre—”

“Yeah. I know of it.”

“Of course you do.” Chris snapped. “You were what, twelve when it happened? I found you in their damn compound with your fool of a brother all those years back, defending it with half-cocked magic and baseball bats. The Hales probably saw the same thing I did when they came back into town, only there was one fool, not two. I’m guessing they took him in and he joined them officially as Emissary. I’ll still be looking for the death report.”

Stiles could see it, too. He and Mickey had spent years of their lives in the Preserve after the Massacre. Trying to clean the place up, protect it from other packs. Protect the Nemeton from other covens or families. Stiles had no idea why Mickey had done it but Stiles had been too angry not to. Angry at his parents dying. Angry at being left to take care of a crazed old grandmother who despised him. Angry that the last things his parents had ever built before they went crazy had been torn down to kill a family he had spent his life surrounded by. Angry at himself for his involvement. Angry at his parents for blaming him. Angry at _Babushka_ for the same thing. Angry at Mickey for not blaming him. Angry at werewolves—absolutely fucking furious—at the creatures who had been too weak to defend themselves.

And then he’d been angry at himself for leaving the town and Mickey to defend it all by himself. At not being strong enough to defend a dead memory. At running away and never looking back.

When Chris came to figure out what was going on in Beacon Hills, Stiles hadn’t thought once about Mickey staying to continue the work on the Compound and the wards. Hadn’t realized his brother probably had his own reasons for being out in those woods to protect a graveyard. That he’d been standing there, alone and without backup. Only to align with fucking werewolves to alleviate the loneliness. No—not only to align with them but to become _pack_ , too. A step above even what his parents had done as Emissaries. The pure arrogance of a witch being pack…

Stiles probably shouldn’t have left the way he did.

“Death by claws. Cut right over the jugular. Bled out.” Stiles flinched as Chris broke the silence. “Derek was telling the truth, he was there. So were a lot of the Hale pack. Apparently, it was in self-defense.”

“What?” Stiles hissed. “Mickey could hardly use attack magic at all!” He was yelling again, feeling the new and gold anger bubble up inside himself. “The only thing he had was a defense rune I placed on him when we were seventeen. He had to be practically on death’s door for it to work, though. No way could he pose a threat to a werewolf otherwise!”

“It says…” Chris made a strange sound over the phone like he was repositioning it from ear to ear. “You’ll want to see this yourself. The money for your bail should be through by tomorrow. I’ll make sure these files are in your email. Kid… Kid stay away from the Hales till you read this, okay? You might want to give them some time.”

“Some time? Some time!” Stiles found himself pacing like Derek had been doing earlier. “Why? They don’t like seeing the face of the man they killed—”

“Agent.” Chri’s voice was cool and toneless. “Take a breather in the slammer. Cool your head off. I’ll make sure that Allison gives you a detailed report before you leave the station. Hopefully, she’ll be able to prevent you from doing anything stupid. Just… just know for now this case isn’t black and white. You remember the mess we had in Union City?”

“Of course.” A boy had been bitten by a rogue Omega Alpha looking to build his pack—only that Alpha had spent too much time alone by then and grown insane. When the new beta had struggled against the control, the Alpha had tried cementing a pack bond through blood sport. Stiles and Allison had been placed there but couldn’t do anything as the Alpha raged and slaughtered and the new beta struggled for sanity. Bureaucracy being what it was, they’d had to wait till the Accords took their slow ass time in making a decision and pushing paperwork in. All they could legally do was reach out to the beta and try to teach some semblance of control. Allison had ended up falling for the beta, her big-mushy heart being what it was, and by the time they got the green light, the beta had been mentally fried. He’d tried going after the Alpha I some desperate attempt to relieved himself of his lycanthropy—where he got that fucked up myth Stiles never figured out—and ended up going insane from the pressure of killing his maker and only pack member. Stiles had been forced to watch Allison do what she needed to do and put a bullet into the guy she’d started to fall for.

They hadn’t had field work for six months after that and had been in near constant psychological sessions. Even now, Allison was a little colder, a little more mean-hearted than she’d ever been before. Inside and outside of missions.

“This’ll be worse,” Chris warned.

Stiles found himself touching his lips as Chris hung up. Yeah, he could see how this could be worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does anyone else love Sense 8? I love Sense 8. Since the show is canceled until further news I might just have to write my own Season 3 of the Wachowski's newest masterpiece.


	4. To Do What Witches Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mickey POV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mickey POV--if it's confusing, I'm going to write his POV intermittently and in chronological order, mostly the big moments, like how he first meets them, how he falls in love with Derek, how he helps Derek make his new betas, and how he dies.  
> \--also, I'm going to edit the first couple of chapters to make it more cohesive, if you want to check 'em out. It won't be big changes tho.

 

Mickey had always been a scared kid. Always avoiding confrontation. Trying to live a simple life. Big things had happened to him, sure, but through no fault of his own. His brother had given himself to the Nemeton. His parents had grown insane and died. Car crashes and random injuries.

Stiles used to always be there, taking the brunt of things, ready to kill and fight with no regards to his own safety. Like a soldier, or one of those old fashioned knights, he’d been there to stand in front of Mickey whenever Mickey debated if he should stand up and fight on his own.

Now Stiles was gone.

He was still scared. But he couldn’t run from things anymore. The burdens of being a witch were his to shoulder now.

He realized, as he had to make hard decisions, like take care of _Babushka_ and protect the grave-site that was the Hale compound—that the best things in life come with fear. If your scared of them, their usually worth holding onto.

Derek Hale scared him. The first time he’d met the man was two days after Laura Hale died. He’d brought his remaining sibling down to Beacon Hills after 6000 miles of driving—and had just stood there in Mickey’s doorway; haunted, grieving, he’d looked so beautiful it had hurt Mickey. The man sent fear rippling through his bruised skin, his torn muscles, his aching but healing bones. He’d nearly prostrated himself to apologize—to beg for forgiveness for not saving Laura… and Derek Hale had walked away. Somehow, that had scared Mickey more.

He didn’t think Derek would hurt him. Derek wasn’t the type to lash out in anger or in fury unless he thought he was going to be attacked in turn—somehow the fear was worse than the fear of pain, though. Something he hadn’t understood till he got to know the man, and realize that it was the beginnings of love.

Mickey loved Derek Hale. He loved all the Hales, but he loved Derek especially. So he fought for them, and he did what witches do, and tried his damn hardest to be someone that Derek could love back. Even after everything.

 

\--first encounter with a Hale—

 

The Satomi Pack liked to come down to Beacon Hills and mess around with his parent's remade  _Varneighi_ wards just for fun. But they'd never actually managed to break them before. It took special skill, special determination, and a little bit of actual standing to break such strong wards. 

He touched them with his own magic, feeling the frayed ends, the bits of runes--like code text--floating and burning out with no source to channel. Completely destroyed. Not even Stiles could have built it back together, if he was still around to do it. It had been a good two years since his brother had up and left him. Mickey knew he was alive though, unlike  _Babushka_ he hadn't given up on Stiles. His brother had packed a bag before he'd left, cleaned out his savings account and had left Mickey a note saying  _I can't do this anymore. Be safe._ While  _Babushka_ thought it was a clear-cut suicide note, but Mickey knew his brother better than anyone. Stiles was probably living it up in Las Vegas somewhere, doing awesome magic and making all the girls and boys fall in love with him. Or getting a tan by the beach somewhere. Or going to college. Whatever, it didn't matter. His brother was alive. He knew that without a fabric of any doubt.

Stiles had never belonged here, in Beacon Hills. Despite the fact that he'd been born with Mickey, he hadn't shared in the family magic, so he hadn't created a blood-line tie. There was none of the spiritual/magical connection that kept Mickey himself grounded his parents or to  _Babushka_. He'd been all alone. And the family had never really tried to breach the gap with good old fashioned love and affection. He was cut off, distant. And even though he tried, he still never belonged.

Wherever he was, Mickey really, really hoped he belonged where he was at now. Even though Mickey really wish he'd at least left a phone number, an email address, anything to keep in contact. Because now Mickey was all alone--and he was pretty sure a werewolf pack was trying to get into the old Hale Estate and kill him.

The closest weapon he had was in his Jeep, several miles out of the preserve and in a campsite parking lot. He could stay in the house--each house had a separate ward inside it, to keep out invaders. Stile's version of a second protection that Mickey was pretty sure even the Satomi pack couldn't break. But his grandmother's nurse was off duty tonight at 10--and she had no one to take care of her until Monday.

Hopefully he'd make it to the car. He looked out the window of the main Hale house, an old dilapidated burned out building filled with rotting wood and termites and the old sleeping bag Mickey kept in the only roofed room--and tried to reach out to Stiles again. Stiles had gained his magic at 12--but there was still no blood tie. No way of reaching out and actually getting to him, to see if he was okay, to send out a warning. But he still tried.  _I love you, brother_ , he thought, then reached for the broken front door and made a run for it.

He ran past the man-made pasture that had been cleared of trees decades ago but was now overgrown with weeds and wild grass. He ran past the smaller homes made for pack-members with small children or emissaries or visiting packs from other areas. His parents had sometimes stayed in the smallest home--basically a two bedroom cabin with a kitchenette and a small mini fridge-- as they tried to keep bickering between them and the Hale pack at a minimum, and had created the  _Varneighi_ wards that had failed the Hale pack in the end. Every time he passed the small house, he saluted it--like he did now.

He kept running. The forest had grown familiar to him over the years. Mickey had been slowly repairing and protecting the old compound for a while now. And Mickey still enjoyed coming out here to get away from  _Babushka_ and the loneliness of Beacon Hills. It felt good, like an echo of home. A memory of the best time of his life. So he knew these woods well enough to run in it in the dark. Enough to let him listen to things that weren't there. The sound of the still wind through the trees above. A small animal here or there, moving too quickly for him, startled by his heavy footsteps.

The sounds were a lot more distinct than the rustling he'd been hearing.The minute he was being chased, he knew it. A crash, heavy stomping feet that pounded over the ground to his left, just behind him. The slap of a tree being moved.

Mickey tried to run faster. He didn't dare look behind him, just pumped his arms and legs as he used every ounce of muscle and agility he'd gained from running through the forest these last few years. He just had to get to his car. That's all he had to do.

The footsteps sped up with him, keeping pace and not trying to hide with stealth. They wanted him to know he was being chased.

Whoever it was that chased him, kept up with him, not moving from their ominous position somewhere off to the left. Mickey tried evading them in the beginning, running nearly a mile by dodging and sprinting, sometimes back tracking and going in zig-zag patterns. Nothing worked. Eventually his stamina started to fall, and he concentrated only on running. Another mile went by. Then another. He’d stopped going for speed and his feet pounded on the floor with the same pace he usually fell into.

Stupidly, it was almost peaceful.

He could smell the campground before he could see the thinning of the trees. It smelled like smoke. Long gone smoke that managed to somehow soak its way into the air through the threes and the smell of pine. His feet started to slap against the ground as it got muddier and muddier, and he noticed the first real thinning of trees. He was almost—

His foot slipped on some mud, his right shoulder slamming into a tree. He pushed himself off it, still aiming for his Jeep. It was probably just fifty feet away. He was sure that if he passed this last bit of mud—he’d reach gravel. From there it was a straight shot. He just needed that last bit of distance.

A light caught his eye. He looked to his left to see eyes reflecting some light, glowing between trees before the angle changed and the light was gone. Definitely a Shifter.

He sprinted as hard as he could, ignoring how the mud sucked in his shoes the closer and closer he got to the gravel parking lot. He looked towards his left again, but he couldn’t see movement—

His feet slammed into the ground, trying to stop running when he realized that the Shifter’s eyes had reflected almost right in front of him. The ground was so muddy that the heels of his feet sunk in, suctioned, and he found himself falling backwards. His arms flapped around at his sides, searching for something to hold him. He grabbed for a nearby branch, but it was thin and new, and bent in his hand. Holding it made him spin, and he was suddenly facing the mud he was trying to avoid.

His palms were wet and stinging from the mud. He tried to scramble up, pushing his legs under him, but his converse only sank further, slipping backwards without any traction. His fists helplessly grabbed clumps of dead pine needles and moss and mud as he tried to shove it all backwards. He managed to rise, his chest making an almost obscene noise as it lifted from the tight placement of mud—

A weight hit him from behind. He felt the air leave his lungs in a great heave before he hit the mud with a loud slap. He could taste it in his mouth. Felt its coldness. Especially in contrast with the sudden crushing weight on his body. Big—hot—hands grabbed at his shoulders and kept him pinned. Everything hurt like an awful pressure, the kind Mickey had felt when he was younger, diving down too far into the ocean floor.

Something grabbed at his hair, gripping it hard enough that he gasped, even with his face flushed into the mud. The taste of it was disgusting, and breathing it in was painful. He felt himself sob. His neck twisting to try and release the grip. But his head was kept down, his hair being used as some kind of leash as his chest ached.

He was going to die. Suffocated by mud.

Someone was saying something above him. He could just barely hear it above the sucking sound of the mud in his ears. A muffled “stop” a “stay still”. The weight over Mickey’s body moved, a weight that was too heavy, too big. Shifters were always big. They had barrels for chests and shoulders so broad they were like doorways. Mickey felt like a toddler, pressed down by a fully-grown adult. Closer, easier to hear, the voice said above the rising of the mud, “Stop flailing and I’ll release your head.” It was close enough that Mickey could tell the voice was female. Deep, like all Shifter voices, and fluctuating in a way a human’s vocal cords couldn’t. Humans didn’t have the right muscles to actually _growl_.

Mickey could distantly recognize that he was fighting off the body. His hands were slapping uselessly at the mud above his head, his feet were trying to find solid, non-slippery ground so he could buck off the weight. He didn’t want to die. Never had.

He could feel his magic starting to release. It had saved his life multiple times; kept him from bleeding out, moved his body when his mind was in shock, made him stronger. But it couldn’t save him from oxygen deprivation—it wasn’t specialized enough.

It wasn’t going to save him, the healing magic. He could feel it slowly filling his body, forcing all his heart to slow into a steady, almost lazy rate. A _bun-bump_ , _bun-bump_ beat that pulsed from his aching fingers to his throbbing head.

“Healing magic can only do so much. It doesn’t have a mind of its own.” His grandmother had once said. When or where or why, Mickey couldn’t remember. He couldn’t even know for sure if she had really been the one to say it. She hadn’t said anything half as coherent in years. But the hallucination of her voice in his head felt so real. Like truth.

His grandmother would have to be wheeled into the hospital, once he was dead. She’d have to identify his bloated, discolored body. He could remember the day she’d walked into the morgue to identify his mother and father. His grandmother had looked dispassionately down at his mother’s disproportionate, purpleling features. She’d reached forward and flicked at the tongue lolling from his father’s toothless mouth. Then held up a red, veined eyeball that was hanging out from his mother’s socket, near the ear. “Yeah, that’s them.” His grandmother had said. Almost distastefully. “Practically murdered themselves trying to release Stiles from his bond with the Nemeton. No wonder they grew so insane.” Mickey chased after Stiles as he ran into the waiting room before collapsing under the weight of his own panic, and Mickey had held him and tried to soothe him as Stiles shook and screamed and released enough magic to lock all the air out of the room.

That had been the first time Mickey had ever suffocated enough to fear death. He'd never thought he'd feel it a second time.

Everything felt awful and painful and vague. He could hardly feel his limbs anymore, much less know if they were trashing around. His thoughts felt like they were just out of reach, like little colorful balloons that slipped out and away whenever he tried to grab for them. His magic pulsed his heart into a steady _bun-bump, bun-bump_ and that was the only solid thing in a world filled with floating pressure.

He barely felt the hand pulling at his hair, the pain of it, before the mud was suddenly tugging at his face. He didn’t fight it, and he didn’t help. He just felt the mud drip heavy from his skin, felt his hair being yanked.

“Breathe,” a voice ordered. His head wobbled from side to side as the hair was moved this way and that.

He could see the vague, blurry images of trees in front of him. That, more than anything, made him realize that air was surrounding him, not wet dirt. The _bun-bump, bun-bump_ of his magic was already dispelling the mud from his eyes, leaking it out through great streams of tears. He could see clumps of it clinging to his lashes. He could still taste it on his tongue.

Before he could register he’d even taken a breath in—he started to cough, great big, horrible, awful coughs that dispelled more air than they took in. It felt, weirdly enough, like the first time he’d smoked a cigarette.

The Shifter on top of him waited all of three seconds before barking out, “Who are you?”

Mickey could only cough in reply.

Eventually his lungs cleared. The air that came into his mouth and down into his lungs burned. He pressed his cheek against the cold mud, feeling it sink a little under the weight of his head as he took in deep breathes. He tried to ignore the mud.

“Who. Are. You?” The woman asked again. The hands on his shoulders pressed the muscles in deep, twisting something. The sharp pain did more to center his thoughts than the air hand.

It took several attempts to speak. When he did manage it, his voice was so wrecked that the Shifter on top of him had to lean in closer, to hear. “Shoul—shouldn’t I be asked you that question?” He wheezed. “Y-You’re the one who came out of—“ He coughed again, for the last time, and felt a wad of something wet and slimy come out of his throat. He spit it out in front of him, unable to tell if it was spit or mud or a chunk of lung.

The Shifter gave one of her inhuman growls. Her hands dug in even more, and the _bun-bump_ of his heart retaliated by shaking his entire frame with its power.

“ _Who are you_?” The voice was so deep, so inhumanly fluctuating that it was hard to tell what the Shifter was saying.

“Fuck—ow!” Mickey screamed, surprised by how loud his voice managed to go now that the slime was out of his throat. He tried to wriggle away, but the hands only dug deeper, paralyzing some part of his arm. “Ugh—Long Chaney! Long Chaney Junior” He yelled, body wriggling in the mud.

The hand in his hair pulled, lifting up his head—before slamming his face back into the mud. It hurt. He screamed in some desperate attempt to keep the mud out. Before the scream even ended, the hand was lifting his face back up.

“The truth,” the Shifter demanded. The damn bitch sounded a bit amused.

“What the—” He was slammed back down. This time, he swallowed a bit of the mud, and they spent the next few minutes waiting for Mickey to cough it all out. “Mikhail! Mikhail!” He yelled, as soon as he was done, and the hand was tugging his head up again, ready for another slam.

Silence—then the weight above him shifted, crushing Mickey under its weight. “Why is your heart beating like that? It hasn’t changed tempo once.”

“Magic,” Mickey said, managing to sound dry and in pain all at once. "Awesome freaking magic which is basically saving my life because you are repeatedly  _shoving my face in mud_!" He got his face slammed down again for his trouble. As soon as his face was lifted back up, Mickey found himself yelling, “It was the truth goddammit! The truth!”

“I know.” The Shifter leaned her mouth near Mickey’s ear, so that Mickey could feel the wet heat of it on the caked mud, forcing it to tingle his skin. “Next question. Are you the one who put those wards up?”

 “Aren’t you the one who broke them?” Mickey snapped back.

 The hands dug in deeper, and Mickey blinked past the tears as the pain took effect. He tried to breath, tried to focus on the rapid beating of his too strong heart. “The wards shouldn’t be there.” The Shifter growled.

“Yeah? Says who? You?” Mickey gritted. It was hard to speak with the angle the Shifter was exposing his neck at. “Fuck off. I’m just keeping the compound safe. It has nothing to do with territories.”

The Shifter backed her face up, but didn’t release the hold she had on Mickey’s hair. “Why?”

“What?”

“Why protect an empty house?”

Mickey had been asked that a lot. By _Babushka_. By the country sheriff, and the mayor, and just about anyone else who was interested in the property because of its location, or its history, or because of the attention it got by the violent Shifters and witches who came to try and claim it. Even representatives of the Alpha Law had emailed him, asking about his loyalties. What was the point? The Hales had abandoned it for the safety of another pack in Indiana.

Only Stiles had understood, and they’d never talked about it. Never put words to their reasons. At first, it had seemed like they had to protect the place. The last bit of their parents magic, a symbol of their life together, had wrapped it’s way around that compound. Putting it back together gave them closure. But then they’d kept adding wards onto it. And then they started to clean up the houses. And it was less about closure as—as the memories. For all those wonderful, easy nights they’d spent there at the compound as a child as their parents and _babushka_ talked business in tense, angry voices. For those first memories of feeling his magic bubble up in him.

But mostly, he’d done it because he had nothing else. Just a crazy old grandmother. 

Mickey found himself choking out a pained laugh. “Who says it’s empty?”

He was prepared for his head to be slammed back into the mud this time. He didn’t swallow any. But the hand didn’t lift like it had all those times before. Panic hit, and he flailed. The weight on him was too heavy. The mud sucked him in, brought back that expanding fire in his chest. He felt the pins and needles start to spread through his limbs, his fingertips and toes.

There was a roaring howl, so loud that Mickey could hear it, even with all the mud in his ears, and the hand shoved his face down harder. He felt his nose mush upwards, felt his lips pull back from his teeth. Then the weight on him was gone. 

Mickey slid his hand under him and pushed against the muddy ground. His face was freed first. Then his upper body. He ended up laying there, in some parody of a yoga pose, as he gasped in breath, coughing through the burn of new air. The _bun-bump_ of his magic shook his entire body. He barely had enough time to get his knees under him before he was puking out the mud.

He wiped a mud-stained wrist against his mud-stained mouth, spitting out bile and mud onto the ground. It was hard to see, but the tears were flooding the mud out of his eyes, and he could see the vague, blurring shape of a woman-shaped thing in front of him, pacing. It—her—the Shifter—was watching Mickey as she paced, her reflective eyes glowing like red lamps.

“What?” Mickey asked, sneering. He could feel the mud coating his teeth. “Not gunna kill me?”

The shape continued to pace. It was a truly statuesque figure. Lots of curves, beautifully long legs. Model, like, because almost all werewolves were the epitome of physical perfection. “If I kill another pack’s Emissary, the entire network of North American will be after me.” She hissed, talking more to herself.

Mickey blinked a few times, wiping the mud from his lashes. He’d thought the Shifter was from Satomi's pack, one of the felines from up North.

The ‘wolf was starting to growl, voice growing inhuman. “I know Alpha Law just as well as you do. Do not goad me.” The figure continued to pace as Mickey’s body thrummed and pulsed with his magic. Mickey’s chest still ached, but less like he was dying and more like he was recovering. He found it helped to press his left ribs in. “Whose Emissary are you? Who do you belong to?” When Mickey only coughed, the ‘wolf stopped pacing. She turned fully to Mickey, crouched a little. “This land is still Hale’s. Or has some pack decided to worm its way in without proper declaration?”

It was a strange reaction, considering. Most ‘wolves would be angry, a bit bitter that they hadn’t gotten the land for themselves, maybe. The few Mickey had come across who had initiated the proper procedure of a turf-war had a bit of jealousy—but never disgust like this ‘wolf. Disgust was reserved for the few Shifter packs out there that were disrespected, feeling like their territory had been entered without courtesy…

Mickey felt his body jerk forward. He clutched at the mud under him with both hands as he tried to blink past the blurriness of his eyes.

The ‘wolf was tall, of course. On the shorter side for a Shifter, she couldn’t have been more than six-one. Her frame was on the lithe side. And even through the blurriness of his eyes, Mickey could see the defined cheekbones that didn’t go out or up, so much as faced forward. Her lips were a bit pulled back into a snarl, so it was impossible to tell what they looked like. The ‘wolfs hair was long, black and perfectly straight. Her skin was too pale to really be called tan, and the features were distinctly canine-Shifter. A long face. A low nose. An odd shaped jaw.

“You’re…” Mickey blinked. It felt like the world was falling away gently to the left, and he was being carried by some current. He could also feel the stupid grin on his face, feel the mud that was drying there itch and ache at his facial hair. “You’re a Hale ‘wolf.”

The absence of any reaction was enough. The Shifter stilled, tensing. Instead of looking ready to pounce, she looked ready to run. Oh god—“you are,” Mickey whispered. “You’re a Hale.” He felt himself tipping as he tried to get his feet under him. He pressed his left ribs in, to release some of the aching pressure he felt as he tried to breathe in. “You’re what, in your 40’s? A bit younger? Shit. An Alpha, with eyes like that. Yeah. There was… shit. Laura… Amelia… shit, uh.” He ignored the stillness of the Shifter ‘wolf in front of him, too caught up in his own remembering. “Mia and Ciara. Yeah. Those were all the Alpha-types around your age.”

Silence. The _bun-bump_ , _bun-bump_ of Mickey’s body didn’t feel so much like a weight as a thrum, now. He slowly stood up, trying to balance on the muddy ground.

“Maria.”

“What?”

“You forgot Maria.”

Mickey grinned, nodding. He felt trigger happy and stupid. Drunk, even. Maybe it was the adrenaline. But it hardly mattered. A Hale was here. _Alive alive alive_ , his heart pulsed. His magic was rushing so strongly in his body, he was pretty sure he was leaking some of it out of him, feeling it wastefully taint the air before dispersing. “That was Ida and Clark’s fourth daughter, right?”

Very slowly, the Hale lowered her head in acknowledgement, eyes still wary. Her fists were clenched. “Who are you?”

“Me? Oh, I’m Mickey.” At the blank stare, Mickey laughed again. It was a bit too loud, a bit too hysterical. A Hale, alive and here. This entire time. “Mikhail, Mikhail Stilinski.”

The Hale’s face was surprisingly easy to read. He could see the exact moment the ‘wolf recognized his name. He could also see the shock, the study, the displeasure, and finally, the anger that reached the Hale’s face. The ‘wolf’s closed-off expression made Mickey’s smile slip.

Thoughts weren’t really forming in his head. He was too punch-drunk. Something dark and ugly was building in his stomach.

“I’m your Emissary.” Mickey hissed out. “Yours.”

“You are not.” The Hale countered. “I have no Emissary.” There was definite displeasure on her face. She was looking at Mickey like Mickey was some kind of sub-creature. As if Mickey wasn’t worthy.

“The fuck I’m not!” He shouted. “My parents made a pack with yours for mutual protection—”

“And failed!” The Hale shouted, using her voice to create base and boom beyond human capabilities. It made Mickey flinch back, his legs losing their balance. He slid on the mud ungracefully. “You failed. Your bloodline failed. My family is dead because of _you_.” The Hale hissed, pointing a finger at Mickey

Mickey felt his mouth open, then close. “That’s… not fair.”

“Not fair?” Hale asked. She took a menacing step forward as a low growl came out from her throat. Mickey, who had managed to get onto his knees, slowly sank back down again. “ _Not fair_? My family was killed! That’s not fair. All because you and yours were too weak to protect us. Too weak to do your end of the treaty.”

Mickey wanted to look away, but he didn’t. Instead, he stared up at Hale, watching the anger mold her face. It felt like he was going to cry—he could feel the swelling at the back of his throat. “How—” Mickey looked away, then, down at his muddied hands. Fingers slightly stiff and curled from the dried mud. “They thought they could handle it, you know?” He said, his voice louder than it should be.

“Is that supposed to be some kind of excuse?”

Mickey didn't look up, just shook his head slowly. He wished Stiles was here--Stiles was always good at explanations and come backs. But Mickey was the only one here, the only one able to explain his parents weakness away. They had grown insane because their magic had grown imbalanced. Or because they'd tried doing a complicated spell to take the Nemeton's power out of Stiles. Or because, simply, one or both of them had had a genetic brain disease that slowly ate away at them. Either way, their mental health slid and so did any magic they'd produced together. They'd died, so the Hale's died too. 

The mud was drying, caking on his skin and making every movement uncomfortable. “They thought they could handle it. And they _could_ , technically. They were strong enough to build the ward. They just didn’t predict that someone so powerful would come after your pack.” He looked up, at Hale’s scowling face. “They didn’t expect them to—it’s just that if we’d only had more time to prepare before they went after you—we didn’t _know_ —”

“Shut up.” Hale snarled.

Mickey rushed up, trying to get to his feet. He slid a few times, but managed to get upright. “No—no, I have to—”

“I said shut up!” Hale hissed. She rushed forward, slapping a hand on Mickey’s mouth. “Someones out there.”

Mickey froze, and when it looked like he wouldn’t try to speak again, Hale moved backwards, looking through the trees. She seemed to tense over, and her hand moved towards her pocket, grabbing for a small pocketknife attached to a key-chain.

“Were you the one that damaged my wards?” He couldn’t remember if Hale had actually answered or not, before.

Hale glared at him, looking ready to stab the knife into Mickey’s side to shut him up. Knowing the impulsivity of alphas—she would probably do it, too. “How did you get here?” Mickey asked, his voice coming out high. “Why are you here? Who broke my wards? The Satomi Pack--" He looked around wildly for something he couldn't see.

“I, I need to get to my car. I need to get a weapon.” He turned to Hale slowly, looking down at the knife in the ‘wolf’s hands. “How long until your next shift?” Werewolves changed in monthly cycles, their hormones changing to allow rapid healing, muscle movement, and structural bone change. At most, a Shifter could change twice a month—but that was rare and usually reserved for omegas.

She glared at Mickey from the corner of her eye. “We need to go.”

Oh, this was so, so bad. How long had they been yelling at one another? How long since Hale had done her little howl of dominance? Their position was compromised. They were completely vulnerable out here. And Mickey didn't even have a weapon.

He looked around, searching the forest. He could suddenly feel eyes at his back. Eyes and danger. None of the shadows moved or glowed, but that didn’t mean much. He looked behind him. He could just barely see the parking lot through the trees. He had to get to his Jeep— “My car. We have to get to my car.”

“I don’t take orders from you, witch. I want—”

Hale stopped talking. Mickey felt his heart pumping, crashing against his ribs, a dull aching _bun-bump_. He pressed his hands against his ribs again. He didn’t need to look at the ‘wolf to know she was looking around, listening, eyes narrowing.

“What’s your name?” Mickey asked, voice soft. It felt important to ask.

A pause. “Laura.”

One of Marcus Valek’s many grandsons. First daughter of Claudia and Daniel Hale.

“My car.” Mickey said, so low he wasn’t sure that Laura could hear him.

Laura nodded, though, eyes scanning the woods. In a single, graceful movement, she was moving forward, running for the parting of the trees ahead of Mickey. After scrambling a bit, Mickey chased after. He could hear the other Shifters now, picking up the sounds of running feet and movement in the forest with his human senses.

Laura just made it to the thinning of the trees before a beta tackled her from the side. There was snarling, the sounds of bodies plopping into mud like a wet splurg--

Mickey braced himself just as the figure of another beta came crashing into his back. Unlike with Laura, he wasn't tackled and pushed into the ground, just hit. He felt something shove between his shoulder blades, felt the air whoop out of his lungs as his back arched. He fell into the ground that was half gravel, half dried up mud.

As he fell onto his hands, someone grabbed his head. He had just enough time to look up, to see what had to be a female looming in front of him. Jeans, a t-shirt that was too big on her. She was ridiculously thin, with a long face and the usual low and broad wolf-cheekbones, a square jaw. Her clawed hands clutched his hair, getting a good grip on the muddied strands as he tried to look up at her. She pulled. His head was shoved down, and he could see the rising image of a denim covered knee—

Mickey had only been knocked out three times in his life. Once, with his own magic when his parents had died and the position of Emissary was passed down to him. The exact moment the force of the position had hit him, he’d blacked out for three days. The second time had been in high school, when he was acting out because of his grief and sick and tired of Stiles protecting him all the damn time. The bully had knocked him out cold, one hit. The third had been when his grandmother had gotten them into a car accident.

He must have passed out before he even hit the ground, because one second he was falling, the next he was laying sprawled on the ground, more dirt in his mouth. The needles and gravel dug into his awkwardly sprawled body, the _bun-bump_ wasn’t the pain in his head so much as his pulse. From one pulse to the next, Mickey was listening to an _actual_ honest-to-god roar. Like he’d heard on the discovery channel.

 _Laura_. He looked up, past tears and mud and what felt like blood to see the image of his Jeep sitting stupidly in the gravel circle. The windows were open, it's paint flaking along with the rust. It looked peaceful, just sitting there. The trees swayed in the background. The half moon illuminated the few clouds that were in an otherwise starless sky. 

He had a cattle prod in there. He had to get the cattle prod.

His muscles had that slow, energized feeling in them. He’d gone beyond the point of physical exertion and his body was moving off magic, now. A kind of defense mechanism that magic used to keep its container—his body—alive. Slowly, he climbed onto his knees, then his feet, ignoring the vertigo that slammed into his head. He wobbled a bit, leaning down so his fingertips brushed the slanting ground. As the world slotting back into place, he rushed forward, moving over the gravel—his knee gave out. He fell, not having enough time to brace himself. Gasping, he got onto his knees, ignoring the burn in his face and elbows as the gravel embedded into his skin. He could still hear the pained howls and grunts from Laura, the little yips and growling sounds from the Satomi wolves.

He got onto his feet. He only stayed bent over, fingertips braced on the ground for support, for a moment or two before he straightened and ran for his Jeep. It was open. He never locked his Jeep. Who would want to steal it? A bumper was corroding away with rust, and two of the doors had belonged to a different model at some point in time, one that had once been white. Its brakes squealed and its leather seats were cracked all to hell. No one would steal his Jeep.

Mickey moved forward, but his depth perception must have been off, because he was slamming into the side of his Jeep before he had time to realize he was so close. He braced his hands on the metal and glass, lifting off. He kept one hand braced on his car, leaning his weight on it, as he moved around towards the back. The back opened, swinging with a heavy screech and—the edge of back door clipped into his forehead as he tried to lean down too soon. The roaring pain was back, and he was leaning forward, using the truck-bed for support. He breathed, in and out, in and out, with the _bun-bump_ of his heart as nausea swallowed him up for a second or two. He was pretty sure he puked on the gravel, but he might have done it inside the Jeep. As quickly as he could, he searched through the darkness of the trunk. A gym bag. His work uniform. His Speedo bag with all of its swimming gear. There was a few pizza boxes from when he and Cole had snuck food into the Drive-In. But there was—there was no cattle prod.

There was a baseball bat. Which was better than a cattle prod, honestly. It was one Stiles had made years ago, an old, beaten up looking thing that had runes carved into the wood.

He silently sent out his magic again, thanking Stiles.

Mickey grabbed for it, careful to not actually touch the wood or the runes carved on it, but the tape that wrapped around the grip. In an instant, he felt the magic of it rush up his arm, jerking it like pins and needles, meeting his own battered magic that was keeping him going. He ducked down—a bit too much, he toppled again, hitting the gravel sideways, landing in puke—the bat in hand. Scrambling up, he rushed for the sounds of someone screaming. He entered through the trees, nearly slamming into one of the trunks. Everything was so blurry, like his contacts had shifted. His vision pulsed with the ache in his chest.

Moving around a few more trees, he could see them. There were five of them, five distinct wolf  shapes. Two of them were dark colored, but one of the darker pelted wolves had light colored feet, like little fur-booties. One was sandy, another spotted like a calico cat, and another with huge thick fur that was bigger than the rest, an alpha type. They stood there in a circle, sub-vocally snarling as they took turns, swiping out at the distinctively human shaped Laura Hale, who was lashing a pocket knife at them blindly. It looked like Laura had tried to partially shift, at least as much as her body could allow, before her hormones had synced up completely. Her skin had grown coarse and wrinkled, tough, like hide. The hair on her head and arms looked dense and heavy, protective. Muscle looked like it had shifted minutely into a more animal stance, but not bone. Her eyes glowed in the darkness.

Mickey took in the sight of Laura’s blood. There was so much, just pouring down onto the ground, that Mickey felt sick again.

He moved fast, knowing he didn’t have much of a window. Hoping his depth perception wasn’t as off as he thought, he gripped the bat, angling for the sandy looking wolf that had backed off a bit from the onslaught. It had knife wounds up its flank, a low whine in its throat as it hobbled on three legs. Mickey got behind it and swung.

The bat connected with slight _smush_ sound of something hard connected with something padded. The wolf did a sort squeaking sound, jumping away sideways from Mickey. There was no smoke or anything so flashy, but Mickey knew that its skin was burning under that fur from the bat’s magic treatment. It was one of Stiles’s more sadistically inspired moments, something to make a blunt object more of a threat. When a magic user gripped the handle, the runes caused a kind of acidic burn that dissolved flesh until there was nothing left. Mickey knew it was working as the sandy wolf let out a pitiful howl, skirting back away from Mickey with its head and tail down. It hit a tree as it tried to sniff at its broken flank.

He kept moving. He caught the second wolf—the calico, distracted by the sandy one’s pain— hitting the forelegs with the audible sound of bone breaking. He turned to swing again—

The world tilted sideways as something warm and heavy smashed against his side. He didn’t hear, so much as felt his own ribs breaking at the heavy impact. Pain laced through his side. He screamed as he landed in the ground, the impact rocking into his broken ribs. He screamed again, a continuous sound now, as the heavy weight landed on him, grinding into his hip, hurting his wounded side. His scream built into another as claws ripped up his back, sending hot waves of pain against the _bu-bump_ , _bu-bump_ of his heart beat.

At some point in time, the scream turned into a war-yell. The bat in hand, he lifted up his wrist and flicked the bat against the muzzle of the wolf, which was opening to get a good grip on his neck. “Off!” He screamed, voice too high, too hysterical. “ _Off_!”

The booty-footed wolf immediately flinched, stepping away, pawing at his burning muzzle with a light front paw. Mickey took the distraction to get onto his knees, trying not to twist his side, trying not to breathe too deeply.

The largest wolf, the alpha type, came after him as he slowly got onto his knees. There wasn’t so much a pain in his back, as the odd sensation of split skin moving, exposing vulnerable tissue underneath. He could feel the hot liquid of his blood move down his back like some kind of fountain. The nausea came back, and he doubled over onto his hands, dry heaving and coughing up stomach acid.   

Through a dry heave, he screamed again, jerking back as vicious canines ripped into the flesh between his shoulder and neck. The jerking tore at skin, and he watched, a bit awed, as the blood left him in a sort of spray, like it always did in horror movies. The spray quickly died, drenching the alpha wolf’s muzzle as it shook his massive head, tearing more skin, causing pain and fear to rip through his entire body in the steady, heavy beat of _bun-bump_.

His magic lashed out at the wolf, moving through his blood, without his conscious thought.

Then the alpha wolf’s mouth was smoking. It tore away, not unclamping its jaws before from Mickey’s shoulder before suddenly rearing back. Mickey screamed again, reaching up to his torn flesh where muscles and tissue had been ripped viciously away. He pressed his fingers into the wound, ignoring how warm and wet it felt as the world blurred more with tears and vertigo.

He was vaguely aware of dark pelted wolf in front of him, through his own pain. It wasn’t attacking though, seemingly transfixed with the sight of the alpha wolf shaking its head back and forth, blood on its muzzle, the delicate tissue between sharp yellow fangs smoking and dissolving in pink saliva. The fur didn’t light on fire, but it did start to melt and pool. Eventually the alpha wolf fell to his side, collapsing, a pool of teeth and pink saliva, blood and matted fur congealing where his head used to be. Now there was only the vaguest sign of brain tissue and dissolving fur at the back of his skull-bone.

Mickey had never seen anything quite like it before. It was disgusting—disturbing beyond all levels. Even more so, his magic— _his_ magic—had been the one to do it. Without conscious thought, his magic had done that.

He had no more puke left in him. He dry heaved, one had still clutching at the hot, wet mass his shoulder had become. Hes going through shock, he realizes, distantly. He could care less if he died now.

The bat swung through the air before he was ready, the magic completely taking over his body. He was aware that the magic was moving him, going through the fail-safe order Stiles had branded onto his body before he'd left. Or maybe it was his magic connecting to the bat's defensive magic. Maybe all the rune did was keep his body fighting. He didn't know. He didn't even have Stiles to ask.

The bat hit the last wolf. The dark pelted one. With the magic in position, he’s aware that he’s swinging better than he had before. There’s more impact, at least. The bat’s frame hit the oncoming wolf across the skull with enough force that there was a bit of a shatter. The wolf’s head was knocked sideways, and its body followed, as if being pulled by its head. It landed on the ground.

The wolf didn’t get back up as its head started to smoke, the acid burning through its skin.

He stood up, body shaking. He’d only ever been this bad once in his life. It was a few years after his mother’s death—when his grandmother’s illness was getting particularly bad, but she wasn’t full on crazy yet. She’d been driving, and thought that the only way to pass the semi was to go under it. The crash itself had been awful. The only reason why Mickey or his grandmother was alive now was because they had their magic. The semi-driver and three other’s who’d gotten involved in the pile-up had died over the course of three weeks in an ICU. His grandmother had avoided a trial because she was issued mentally unstable, and given to his care.

Mickey felt a lot like he had back then, his body crawling out of the twisted metal of the car even though one of his legs was broken in three places.

He found his body moving sideways, towards Laura, who was on her hands and knees, looking like she was struggling to breathe. She was also blindly swerving the knife around in front of her, eyes not really seeing anything. _Worse than me, then_ , Mickey thought, distantly. He really had thought Stiles's insistence on magical protection this extreme was overkill--now he was just impressed.

His body turned itself to stand and face the remained Satomi 'wolves, the ones who hadn't been in the fight, but had stood book, snarling in the tree line like they were doing now. The female beta who had jammed her knee into his head was there, snarling, too thin to have even had her first shift yet. Werewolves tended not to bulk up until the age of sixteen when their bodies metabolisms slowed enough to allow for the hormonal changes.

 “Come on,” Mickey taunted, his voice low and syrupy. “You came here for me. I’m the one who put those wards up.” Nothing, no movement. All they did was snarl. “ _Come on_!” He screamed, his voice amplified by his magic, making his words a physical force, a wind that pulsed with pain and ozone around them.

The snarl is his only warning. His body swung through what his mind thought of as empty air, and the bat landed with a movement across the side of a human’s back. He had no idea how the Shifter had gotten there, how he'd moved from the other two 'wolves side in enough time to attack, but there he was. He fell to the ground at the impact, laying there, not moving. The man’s spine must have cracked or been displaced by the impact.

Another snarl. Mickey’s body swung to face one of the two remaining Shifters. The one he recognized, the young one, lowered her face down, backing up slowly. When Mickey didn’t move to chase after, she turned and ran. Her single remaining pack member ran after. They disappear into the trees.

After a few second of nothing attacking him, the magic altered in his veins, moving back to his wounds to heal. _Bun-bump, bun-bump_. Without the magic controlling his body, the shock fully set in. Mickey was aware of the bat hitting the ground, landing upright in the bloody, dissolved skull of the diseased male wolf, before tilting and collapsing sideways into the ground with a heavy clatter.

He felt like he was leaning sideways, and the world was nothing but a blur of moving objects, all spinning around him. He looked to what he thought was a dead Shifter. The one closest. The one with a snapped spinal cord. The wolf _was_ dead.  Dead. Because of him.

Stiles used to joke about killing things as he set spells down onto his own body to make himself stronger, faster, healthier than any human. As he made his baseball bat, his death-wards. He always used to joke that it was the job of a witch to do what witches did--and that was to use their superior strength to get shit done. 

Well, Mickey had gotten shit done. And he'd killed do to it. Even though he had no magic to reach out, he still tried to connect to Stiles through some will-of-force.  _I'm finally a witch, brother_ , he thought, staring at the gore.  _I've finally done what witches do... would you be proud_?

His dad had killed someone once, when Mickey and Stiles had been ten. Suicide by cop, he'd called it. After he'd come home from the shooting, he'd washed the blood of himself in the shower and came downstairs in his sweats. He'd put the gun on the kitchen table--maybe even showered with it, Mickey didn't know--and stared at it for a while, not talking. Mickey had watched him, trying not to interrupt the strange mix of grief, exhaustion, and pure agony he could feel through the blood-tie. 

Stiles had just walked up to his dad, taken the gun from the table and took all the bullets out of it before putting it up in the gun-belt by the door. He'd then walked up to their dad and hugged him for a good couple of hours, not saying anything, not even feeling the emotions through the bond--but he'd healed their dad in a way Mickey couldn't have.

Mickey had been proud then. Proud to say Stiles was his brother. 

He was shaking. Shaking so hard his teeth rattled. He pressed his palm to his forehead, mixing blood and mud everywhere, and wondered what he was even thinking right now.

Like with everything else, the shock pulsed, moved with _bu-bump_ , _bu-bump_ of his overworked heart. He only had a few minutes before he would be knocked under. He’d probably have a panic attack too. He hadn’t had one of those in a while, but he could feel it coming on in the constrictions of his breathing, in the way the world was slowly leaving him so he was looking at everything through a spinning, dense fog.

 _A murderer._ He’d killed--five? Six? Mickey was on the way to becoming a serial killer of fucking werewolves. Not that the Alpha Laws would find him guilty of any crime. He was only using his magic to protect the land his magic was sired to. Protecting the Hales.

Hale. Laura Hale.

He turned his head, not his body, but it didn’t matter. His muscles were jelly, anyway. He was more aware of the impact of the fall then the actual falling. His hip hit first, then his elbow as his body tried to correct itself. All of the hurts and aches screamed at him. He turned anyway, tried to focus through the panicked hitch of his breath. He was hardly exhaling anymore.

Laura Hale was human, curled over herself. Her body was covered in blood and dirt and mud, the wounds gaping and still leaking, the biggest one a slash mark on her inner thigh. Her eyes were open, flat and dead. She had died quietly, without Mickey noticing. It must have been why the Satomi wolves had retreated. Because they knew that Hale was dead.

Another Hale, dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaannnddd--long time no write. Family, life, work, I'm trying to write a bit more. Hope the wait is worth it


	5. If I was there...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I changed the "sitatuion" at Union City, if ur confused about the beta she fell in love with.

 

Allison bailed him out the next day. He sat up from the hard bench as she walked through the jail cell, the Sheriff trailing behind her. She was all decked out in her tactical gear, making a damn fearsome sight; guns strapped to her legs, crossbow and quiver at her back—she stared at Stiles with an unreadable gaze before shaking her head and sighing. “Stiles…”

“Yeah yeah. Shouldn’t have done it—blah blah blah.” He rolled his eyes and tried to move around into a better position, hands still cuffed together. They were human-issued, he could snap them apart like twigs if he really wanted to, but he was trying to be a good boy. “Get me outta here so I can learn from my mistakes.”

She crossed her arms, neither her nor the Sheriff moved to release him.

“Bit of a yapper, this one.” The Sheriff said lightly behind her. “Lot like his brother that way.”

Stiles tried to ignore the hurt in his chest with a blindingly sharp smile. “Naw, man, I’m one of a kind.”

“Thatforore sure.” Allison said. “As of now, you are put on probabtion, stripped of all Hunting statusand the power of the Accords it entails. Your ID number and issued weapon have already been signed in to the Agent on Case, Allison Argent. You will be taken out of the jail cell. You will be transported to the Sheriff's office where you will make an official follow up report on what happened the evening of July 12th, approximately 7:20 am at Addicted to Caffeine. After, you will read the report on Mikhail Stilinski's death, and be assigned to a safe-house in town where you will be confined until your trail on August 3rd." She waited. "I need a verbal confirmation, Stiles."

He stared at her, realizing that she was serious, that she wasn't going to relent on this. He'd seen that look in her eye several times. She trained it on the out-of-basic officers they'd taken out on the field. He'd seen it in her father's eyes. He'd even had it trained on him a few times, when he'd fucked up. If he didn't do everything she said, she'd shoot him with justifiable cause. Again.

He sighed. "I agree to your terms."

"Stand up, place your cuffs through the bars and we'll put regulation cuffs on." She reached into one of her many tactical pockets and pulled out the regulation cuffs, thin, silvery things that would damper his magic, making them unbreakable and also trace him if he tried to run.

He sighed heavily, to show that while he was going with what she was saying he wasn't happy, and in a few short moments he had the delicate silver things on his skin, pulsing with latent energy, crackling a bit so his arms started to feel a bit dead within seconds. He hated the damn things--but they got him through the bars of the jail cell and into an office.

A girl was waiting there, sitting on the desk. Young, probably still in highschool, she had perfectly styled hair that may or may not have been a weave--it was very shiny, very straight, and set in a kind of fashion-forward box, with straight bands and no layers that framed her heart shaped face well. Her clothes looked fashionable and expensive and very out of place next to the dingy desk she was sitting on, and the hand crafted worlds best Sheriff mug beside her. Her large eyes grew larger as Stiles was escorted in. "Ooohh--is this the criminal? The guy who attacked Derek?"

"Emily." The Sheriff said, tone long-suffering and loving in a way only a dad can produce. "What are you doing here? Go home."

"I brought dinner." The girl pouted, motioning to a tin-foil wrapped plate next to her. "Mom says she doesn't want you eating junk food again."

"Thank you sweetie, now please, go home."

She flicked her hair, which was really too short to flick. "No can do, daddy-o. I'm waiting for Keenan to pick me up."

"And how'd you get here?"

Stiles was shoved into a low couch by Allison, who took off her gear and put in it's arms reach, away from Stiles, before leaning against the wall. The girl, Emily, seemed very interested in her. "I walked." She said flippantly.

"Wait in the lobby."

"But it smells in there!"

"Emily."

She pouted, long and melodramatic in a way that made Stiles feel very old all of a sudden. With a flare, she jumped off the desk--skirt bouncing--and walked out head held high. The Sheriff kissed her on the forehead before closing the door behind her, and sitting down at his desk. "I leave this interrogation to you, ma'am." He said, nodding to Allison, who was a good ten years younger than him. A lot of people gave Allison respect like that. Especially when she had that look in her eye.

She took out a tape recorder and they started.

* * *

 

“I just don’t get it,” Allison said, shaking her head. “Why do you feel so strongly about this?”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Stiles asked. He’d given the same statement he’d given Chris with a few minor details added in as Allison asked for specifics. With the tape recorder, still on, she was getting personal. The psychs evaluators were going to eat it up.

“You’ve never once shown an interest in Mikhail's life once you became a Hunter. I didn’t even know you had a brother until I read your file when we became partners. You’ve never once talked about him. Always changed the subject when Communications Agent McCall brought up details about Mikhail’s life. You didn’t even show any outward signs of grief when you realized he was dead. So I ask you, why the sudden interest in avenging your brother? Why even put down a blood-feud claim?”

Stiles’s magic stirred which made his arms go truly numb with the cuff’s flaring energies. He could hear them crack and sizzle and wondered how much magic he would have to push into them to get them to break.

“Make it known that Stiles’s cuff warning system is activated. His magic may be unstable.” Allison said, her gaze tight and observant.

Stiles gritted his teeth and forced his magic back down. “His is my brother.”

“The same excuse you used in the coffee shop. But Derek Hale did make a good point. As do I. You’ve never cared before—why the change?”

He glared at her, hating her for the first time in a long while. Hated that she was pushing this. Hated that she had to ask while she was recording—while there was a stranger in front of them. He hated being vulnerable. Hated giving away his emotions. A weakness, he knew. Vulnerability was a part of strength. Mickey had taught him that long before the Hunter evaluators did. He just wasn't strong enough to do it.

“Because… because werewolves killed him.” Stiles said, looking down at his clasped hands. She’d at least given him the courtesy of cuffing him in the front. He was still considered a non-violent. “Because when I left… I didn’t even say anything to him. Didn’t even mention that Hunters were giving me an ultimatum. Just said they were there to clean up the mess I made. I didn’t want him involved, he hadn’t done anything. Just… yeah.” Stiles took a deep breath. “I’ve lived my entire adult life fighting to defend people from monsters that abuse the system and try to take more than what they should. Werewolves included. And fucking—I wasn’t there. Okay? That’s why I’m pissed. That’s why I want to _do_ something about all this. Because I left him for dead, not thinking about anything but my fucking self, and he got involved in some dangerous shit without backup. He ended up taking a position he had no training for and if I was there…”

It was more than that, too. More than what he could verbally say. Mickey... Mickey had waited it out, been patient, and he'd been rewarded. He'd ended up as the Hale Emissary against all odds. A position that Stiles would have done  _anything_ for. Anything. Even stayed in Beacon Hills. Mickey had gotten the position his life had moved on in a steady, seemingly wonderful pace as Stiles threw himself into blood and death as if he'd belonged in it. The unfairness of it... was wrong, he realized. And shameful.

“If you were there, if you had cared, you could have saved him.” Allison finished, her eyes softening a bit. “Is that what you're getting at?”

“Yes.” He hissed. He hated the look in her eyes. “Yes, all right? I could have saved him. I had all the training for it. I had all the strength. If I’d just… given him a lifeline, kept in contact… he could have called on me and I could have been there.” He closed his eyes against the sting in them. “I want to do something now. Little too fucking late, I know, but I want to have been there for him… so I’m here now. And I’m going to do something now.”

“Make note that Agent Argent has no further questions or follow up.” She reached for the tape recorder and turned it off. “Stiles…” He voice was softer now. “You could have done something, yeah. What you did, not even trying to keep in contact, letting him think you were dead, it’s fucked up. But you can’t—”

“Don’t you dare say I can’t blame myself for it.’ He shot out, his cuff’s sparking.

“I was going to say you can’t burden yourself by taking your mistakes so personally.” She said, voice still soft. “You’re only human. You can’t see into the future, can’t tell what’s going to happen because you do something or feel something.” It’s what he’d told her after she’d shot that beta she’d loved. He hated his own words used against him. “Move on, Stiles. Take the pain and live through it. Make better choices from here on out. But do it in a way that won’t damage your life forever.” She reached out then, grabbing his shoulder and then the sides of his face. “I need you, Stiles. Don’t take yourself away from me.”

He was going to cry. Fuck.

The Sheriff—still behind his desk—coughed lightly. “ If I may... I knew Mickey. He was a good guy. And he wasn't weak, either. He was smart enough to know when to keep himself out of the fight, and Derek and the others, they protected him."

Stiles shot the old man a glare. "And what? They decided to kill him anyway?"

"Stiles." Allison shot out, her grip on his shoulder getting a little stronger. "Focus on the positive."

"Fuck that--they killed him."

"You don't know the story."

"Then tell me already!" He screamed, a little bit of the tears streaming down his face.

She sighed, long suffered and tired. She moved over to the Sheriff's desk and took a file from the top that had the Accords stamp on it. "Since you are on probation you are not privy to all the facts. You can't read it yourself. But..." She did a little anxious motion, using the file to slap her thigh. "I can tell you the bigger points." She apologized with her eyes, which flicked over to the Sheriff--then back to him. She'd let him read it later when there were no witnesses.

“The Hale Pack was—is—fighting the Satomi Pack for land rights. Satomi felt that she had more claim over that land than the Hale’s did after the Massacre. They’d fled the land and she’d petitioned Alpha Law for invasion rights which had been given to her. Only she kept getting deflected by a rogue witch without a coven who claimed to be the Hale Pack Emissary. The official statement right now is that the Hale’s fled the land for protection and that they still had claim over it because of their unofficial Emissary—Mickey—and because they’d left Pete Hale—a comatose burned ‘wolf—within their borders. At the time of Mickey’s death, they were battling it out pretty severely in court, bringing in the death of Satomi’s wolves by Mickey’s hand and Laura Hale’s death by Satomi’s ‘wolves hands.”

“A nightmare.” The Sheriff said, shaking his head. “Had the whole town in an uproar.”

“Tied up in legislation, the Hales were allowed to keep the land and have since then built up a new Pack House. They didn’t have the ability to call for help when they were attacked on a separate front by a convened witch. Honestly, with how quickly everything moved, I don’t think they could have _called_ for help much less received it.”

“Who was the witch? What coven?” Stiles asked, frowning.

“Her name was…” Allison paused to open up the file and read it a bit. “Ellie Mass. Part of the Black-Briar Coven.” A fairly large national coven of black-magic witches. Real pieces of work, too. Stiles had only dealt with them once and never wanted to again. Black magic left a foul taste of death in his mouth, thanks to his nature-bound powers.

“Apparently alone and without coven involvement, Mass was attempting to do a complicated blood-spell with a fresh werewolf heart as an ingredient. It’s assumed she felt the Hale Pack was the perfect supplier thanks to the lack of Alpha Law defense, weakened Pack state, legislation issues, and ties to the local Nemeton in their land. She attacked Peter Hale and killed him. She took his heart—”

“Still alive out of his chest?” Stiles asked. That was some serious black blood magic, some of the heaviest kind. It gave an incredible amount of power but at the cost of sanity. Stiles didn’t believe that her coven wasn’t behind it. She would have needed other witches to take the burden of the spell to keep her sanity intact.

“Yes. It’s assumed that the Hale Pack realized Peter was dead at the same time Mickey was in the woods. It’s reported that he often went out there to look for the Nemeton, why is unclear—” Stiles closed his eyes. He knew why. Derek Hale had even told him. Mickey went out looking for the Nemeton to mourn Stiles, believing that if Stiles _were_ dead, his soul would be bound within the tree. Stiles started to feel a heavy weight in his body as leaned back, eyes closed.

He knew how these stories played out. He’d seen enough of them. There was only ever one outcome when blood-magic was involved and innocent people were left standing in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“Mickey found the Nemeton as Mass was performing her blood spell. He tried to stop her and an altercation took place in which the blood magic was transferred not to Mass, but to Mickey.” Stiles opened his eyes, then blinked against the lights in the office as Allison’s voice smoothly played out Mickey’s death. “He attacked her with the new blood magic, killing her on the Nemeton—which is now tainted.”

“This happened one month and thirteen days ago.” Stiles breathed.

“Yes.” She nodded.

“I don’t understand the significance of that.” The Sheriff said suddenly.

“A month and a half ago Stiles’s magic changed, as did his temper. He tied himself to the local Nemeton here as a child and his magic comes directly from it and the ley lines that its connected to. It’s why he’s classified as a Level 2 Mage.” Allison explained. He could feel the weight of her gaze on him, though he couldn’t open up his eyes to meet it. “With the Nemeton tainted by sacrifice, so is Stiles’s magic.”

“It’s why I can’t helo Scott anymore. Why he had to go back to chemo.” Stiles said, shamed suddenly.

“You tried.” Allison offered. “But the Nemeton here has grown grey—and its status is being heavily monitored. As long as no more blood sacrifices happened within the next century, it will calm back down.”

“I’ll be dead before then.” He was tied to the Nemeton through blood. If he died before it could heal, he would be the blood sacrifice that changed a pure Nemeton into a dark one, attracting every nasty kind of supernatural creature in the world to its tainted ley-lines. Beacon Hills would become a slaughtering ground and the surviving Hales would wish they’d given up the land to Satomi.

“Mickey… infected with the new magic and the cemented blood sacrifice, Mickey grew berzerk. He attacked the first person he saw, which was Isaac Hale, a bitten-beta of the Hale pack. He was coming to look for Mass.” And Mickey would have had all the power and strength of blood-magic to attack a bitten werewolf and then some. Plus the added strength, Stiles had given him when they were younger, a rune that made Mickey into a killing machine the second his life was threatened. Stiles found himself shaking, his cuffs sizzling, and he lay back and listened. “Issac managed to fend off Mickey until the rest of the pack arrived. It was reported the Mickey was too powerful to stop, even to restrain. He nearly killed Isaac Hale, Cora Hale, and Vernon Boyd before Derek, unable to sedate or calm or restraint… was forced to…”

“Kill him.” Stiles finished. If Stiles had been the one to find Mass, to kill her, he would have been able to absorb that blood magic and deflect it back into the ley-lines. It would have turned the Nemeton dark immediately but it would have left Stiles with his mind intact. Through time, maybe, he could have diffused the blood magic and released the Nemeton back into its pure state.

Mickey’s magic had been light and feathery. Pure healing, tactical, and protective magic. All that dark blood sacrificing, without any kind of conduit—thanks to his lack of blood-ties to Stiles—would have shattered his mind. He’d have been a lunatic in seconds. Derek hadn’t even really killed Mickey, just his body.

He heard a click, then Allison’s voice, hard again, as it said, “Let it be known that the report of Mikhail Stilinski’s death has been given.” Silence.

Stiles sat up. He tucked his head down low into his parted knees and began to weep.


	6. An Immortal Soul

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little existential nihilism for u, and u, and u.

They were quiet as they walked into the safe house, an apartment building with strange industrial sized doors that opened up into a huge loft space. There was a kitchen to the left, a huge wall of small square windows that looked out into the street, and a spiral staircase that led up, and a bed and couch. Stiles walked in, not really knowing what to do. It was obvious that Allison had already set things up--her suitcase was on the floor by the bed, her gun's gear laid out and ready to be oiled and cleaned and installed on the coffee table. 

"I bought pizzas, should be delivered soon," Allison said, walking past him and towards her guns. He watched her sit down and arrange the setup. "No wifi, no tv--but it's as good as any place, I guess."

"Better than Moscow, Idaho." He agreed dully, looking around. It was a bit dingy, but overall a really nice place. "How'd they secure it?"

"It was... given," Allison said tightly.

"By?"

"Derek Hale." She looked up, watching his reaction. He didn't even have a reaction to give, though. He was all wrung out on emotions, empty and void of them. "He'd bought the place several years ago, but as the pack was expanding, decided to rebuild the Hale Compound. He and his pack live there now. And there was no renter's here currently. It was the easiest thing at such short notice." He wondered how that had gone down if Derek had offered or Chris and Allison had looked deep enough into the Hale finances to ask. He wondered if Derek was okay with it. "A hotel would have been..."

"Yeah." Hotels and Hunter weapons were generally not good. Especially because the Hunters sprung for cheap motels, instead of high-class places. They'd had a lot of instances of gangs and prostitutes and opportune maids trying to steal their shit. "It's a good place."

She said nothing, just took out her rag and started cleaning the slide on her Beretta. 

"Did he..." He trailed off, still not moving from his spot. "Did Mickey live here too?"

"I don't know," Allison said, not looking up from her careful work. "Does it matter?"

"No. Not really." Even now, he realized he had no urge to know how Mickey had lived, just he'd lived the life Stiles had been so desperate to have. A life that he'd given up too early. He realized then why he'd been so angry to see the wolfsbane flowers at the grave site. It meant that there was Pack involvement, that Mickey had become an Emissary to a Pack. Not a Hale Pack--Stiles had thought they were all dead until yesterday--but some random, undeserving Pack. Stiles had been furious at  _that_. The idea that his family's magic had been used for a lesser people, than that great, wonderful, massive family who had taken in his parents and played with him, grown up around him. But that was wrong. And Stiles was still a selfish prick. He couldn’t even bring himself to care about Mickey's life--other than to grow jealous of his brother's last few years as Hale Emissary. Couldn’t bring himself to drudge up the dark and horrible place he’d stuffed his love for Mickey’s into enough to wonder where he'd lived. 

He walked over to the huge wall-window, looking out the dirty skylight. The urge to fill the silence was incredible. Without the tape recorder, without the Sheriff, he needed to vent. "It's weird. We... we were close. He was always there, you know? We were inseparable unless  _Babushka_  separated us. She considered me vile, tainted." He laughed, realizing that she was right, in the end. He was tainted now, down to his very magic and soul. "She hated me because I’d gone and looked for power in the Nemeton. Hated me because she thought my parents went insane because… because they were trying to break that contract. She tried to break us apart, but Mickey, he fought her tooth and nail when he could. After our parents died, though, she was his only bloodline connection. Obeying her was like breathing. She was his connection to... everything."

"How do you mean?"

"I mean, blood ties are like... like..." He wracked his brain, trying to come up with examples for a thing he'd never actually felt before. "It's like an ancestral link, and a collar, and a guide-of-how-to-live all in one. It's formed in the womb, to keep babies from reaching out with their magic when their crying and throwing tantrums. A parent--or any blood-tie relative--can literally take the magic away from the baby when they don't have control. It also keeps an eye on the baby. If they get sleep apnea, SIDS, the parent knows, moments before it happens because of the way the magic reacts in the body. They can stop it. They can also teach a baby how to heal their own colics, shit like that. When you have blood ties you have constant communication, at least on a subconscious level, on how your family is doing. What they feel, what their magical state is at. When it's endangered, the subconscious level turns into a conscious one. 

"Once the baby gets control, once they grow into an adult, the blood-ties change a little. You can still control what they’re doing, at least a little, but then an adult can fight it. Wrestle back control, do what they want. Then the blood-ties are more about teaching. Showing with magic the little family ways of doing things, like helping plants grow the way you want, or cleaning the house without any effort, or protection spells and wards. It's like a grimoire, passed down from generation to generation but never written."

"I can't see how it would stop your brother from loving you," Allison said. He heard the click of her putting down her slide, heard her grab something else.

"Naw, I can't see that it ever did that--it did, however, change him. His only source of magical connection was through her. The spells he learned were different, the way he did things, more like her. He even picked up smoking, packing the cigarettes just like she did, flipping the two luckies just like she did--even though she did it as a habit, one for her, one for  _Dedushka_. It was the little things. We grew apart. Only came back together when we were out on Hale land."

"I can see why you protected it so much, then."

"I guess." He shrugged, still staring at the dirt-tracked view.

"I can also see why you felt so distant from your family."

He shrugged again. "I was jealous, constantly. I wanted what they had. I wanted strength. I wanted power. I wanted what my parent’s had. I think… I think I wanted it for the Hales. I knew I could never give them the kind of power my parents did and it upset me. I was going to be an Emissary, one for a great Pack like the Hales… I needed to be a good one. Or else they’d have to outsource and look for a different Emissary outside of the Stilinski line." Which was as wrong as a Stilinski serving another Pack. "I didn’t want to be left behind by them.” He could remember a younger Derek, fiercely protective and funny. He could remember Laura Hale, her high laughter, her annoying screaming whenever her elder brother, Matt, did something just to fuck with her. He could remember the way the children always slept together in one huge pile and how everyone was going to a cousin or an aunts house to cook food or gossip. The Compound had been home. Family. Stiles laughed at the memories. "I went to the Nemeton for strength,” He said, remembering that for the first time in… years. Something had happened, some death, and it had triggered Stiles to make the decision he’d been wrestling with for years. What had happened though? Who had died? He couldn’t remember.

"So I went searching. Having to learn the hard way made he realize that I had to learn harder, too. Do more. Have all the answers. The Nemeton in town and its place on the ley-lines was a natural transition from learning about the source of magic and why people are born with it. A little digging around and it wasn't hard to realize you could make a deal with the devil itself. You just got to say the right words, feel the right things, give a little blood to the roots--and wallah, you get magic for your entire life, more magic than most people have, even the Great Families. Only, when your dead, the Nemeton comes to collect."

"What... would that be like?"

"Death? Who knows. Haven't died."

"Stiles."

"Yeah." He smiled. "The reports say I'll be absorbed into the ley lines itself. Anchored to the tree. A lot of reports--most of them are fairy tales, shit with some truth but so muddled up in different lore and accounts it's all jibberish--state that it'll be like... like I'm still conscious, like an immortal ghost who constantly protects the area where I'm anchored. Other's say it'll be like I  _am_  the tree, stuck watching, always waiting, never doing anything but being a tree, knowing I used to be a human. There are these legends I read when I was a kid, about this monstrous tree called the Cathea, it was this evil tree that used to be a human, and it hated being the tree so much that it used all of its knowledge, all of its quiet observations of the people who lived on its leys--and it tortured the humans that came up to it. Told it secrets and lies and made their fate twist…” Stiles paused, feeling something he couldn’t name constrict in his chest. 

“Mostly it all boils down to immortality. I'll always be there. My price to pay, I guess, for being a jealous ass kid who wanted to be stronger than he really was."

He heard her sigh. Felt her come up behind him and hug him around the middle, her cheek pressed against his right shoulder. "Is there any way... to, stop it? Cancel the process somehow? Give up the magic and be mortal?"

"My parents tried, when they realized what I’d done." He leaned back against her gently, both of them leaning on each other. "But what's done is done. Just like Mickey. He would have never come back, you know? After all that blood magic, after the power of the Nemeton going grey--suddenly bursting in him--he would have never turned into himself again. It's called voidification. The magic was so strong it hallowed out his soul, took it for its own."

"He's immortal too then? You'll see him when you die?"

He shook his head. "No. I don't know. Maybe. By all accounts, he's just... gone. Dead. Gone wherever people go when they die, if you believe in that sort of thing."

"I believe in Heaven. I believe he's up there, watching you, loving you still with your parents."

He grabbed her arm, patting it gently. "That's a very human thing to say. We witches--we believe in death. Just... death. Nothing before, nothing after. It's why me being bonded to the tree is so bad. Because then there will be an after. Just like your version of Heaven, I'll be an immortal spirit, trapped, unable to do anything but watch as the world entropies around me. To a witch it's wrong. You're just supposed to die."

"That sounds awful, Stiles."

"Sounds kind of peaceful, to me." He murmured. "What's the point in an afterlife other than proving a kind of cosmic balance of how you lived? Were you good? Were you bad? From birth to life it's all one big test to see where you get placed for the rest of existence." He sighed. "At least I know where my place will be, no matter how good or bad I am."

"But I think it does matter." She said. "If your good, maybe when you die... the Nemeton will heal?"

"Maybe."

They were silent, just leaning against each other till there was a knock at the door. Allison paid for the pizza. They sat it on the floor next to the coffee table, sitting on opposite sides of the couch and letting their legs rest on each other as they ate. She ate very little, he ate most of it. 

"So... blood-ties, every witch has them?" She asked.

"Yes." He said, confused. She knew this. It has been part of basic training. Plus, she was a damn Argent, they were the only humans in the world with a more extensive knowledge of supernatural creatures than most supernatural creatures.

"So the witch who Mickey killed, Mass, she has blood-ties.” Allison said, speaking more to herself. “And doesn't that mean a vendetta is placed?" Both of them had been trained never to kill a witch, just detain them when they could and contact their coven and family, work through the painful process of the Accords and see what could be done. Usually, the family extracted their own revenge on a wrongdoing. Sometimes the crime was bad enough to warrant a nullification, the complete blocking and destruction of a witch's magic and blood-ties. It's the process the blood-witch who'd taken Peter Hale's heart would have had to go through, if she'd lived. It was painful, and isolating, and often enough resulted in the witch's suicide.

"Yes." Stiles picked off the onions on his pizza, flicking them down in the cardboard box. He hadn't realized he was smiling until Allison kicked him. "Her family--maybe even her coven, depending on how deeply she was involved with them--will come looking for revenge, if they aren't here already. It has been a while." His smile grew deeper, more satisfied. He had no idea what kind of family mass had been born into if she was a black-sheep or they were all as bloodthirsty and hungry as Mass had been. Probably the later, if he knew mages. Mages always wanted more power, more strength, more and more and more. They'd do just about anything to get it. Like steal the living heart of a werewolf or bind themselves to a tree for all eternity. But more than that, Stiles could remember the Black Briar Coven. They'd been memorable. And bloodthirsty. No way would they not want to exact revenge--a deep and bloody revenge.

"Depending on who they think is at fault, they'll either come in guns blazing or go away. Technically the witch's killer is already dead--but blood-vendettas are complicated. They might see the Hale's as guilty, too. Maybe even want to kill them just for killing her killer."

"War, then." She frowned.

"Oh, yeah." Stiles grinned at, his cheeks stuffed with pizza. " _War_."


	7. This'll Be Good For You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another Mickey POV

It took a while for Derek to start talking to him after they'd met at Mickey's doorstep, and even longer for him to trust Mickey. A solid year of coming around the loft he'd bought for him and his sister, bringing food because neither of them could cook, bringing movies and asking if they wanted to watch them, sometimes just coming around because he was bored and lonely and looking to connect.

Cora never tried. Would walk away when he came in, go out for a run in the woods. Derek would stay, and he'd accept the food, decline the movies, and tell Mickey to leave. But it was Cora that actually took the chance, in the end, to trust him and get to know him. They'd both been in line at the grocery store, Cora studiously ignoring him as they waited for their items to be rung up--her food all microwavable, him, some milk--when a prejudiced wolf-hater started ranting about the vileness of the the 'inferior species'. Cora had taken it like a champ, and other than the face-pinching and the tight shoulders, she didn't react to the loud woman's screeches about locking up all the werewolves in camps, separating the species out.

Mickey had stepped in. He yelled at the woman for her close minded ways, for her foolish hatred of a thing she knew nothing about. It got so bad that both Mickey and the woman were asked to leave, and Mickey didn't even get his milk. He stomped out of the grocery store mumbling under his breathe, walking towards his Jeep, when suddenly Cora Hale was there. She glared at him, told him he didn't need to defend her, or say what he'd had to say. He explained simply that he'd done it not for her--but for all werewolf kind. Like some kind of savior, he explained his cause, going into depth on werewolf ostracism and cruelties before she shut him up by shoving a milk jug into his chest. "Come by the loft later." She said. "That new Wonder Woman movie looks awesome." And then she was gone. With her approval, he started hanging around more. Got to know the Hale Wolves.

 

\----Rebuilding the Pack-----

 

"You need more Betas, Derek."

"No, I really don't." Derek groused. He'd let Mickey in, even though it was the ass crack of dawn and he'd clearly just gotten out of bed. His hair was a sleep rumpled and cute, his pajamas hanging low off his hips. Before he'd made coffee, he was speaking in low grunts, now, actual words. It was progress.

"You really, really do. One beta isn't good for you psychologically. An alpha needs at least three. At  _least_. Or else you're instincts will start to grate on you and you'll start feeling like an omega and and alone and sad and you'll start getting  _mean_. Well, meaner."

"I have two betas." Derek reminded him.

"Peter doesn't count. He can't even move. Or talk. Or hug. Or, you know, wipe his own ass." Mickey threw his hands up. "Totally not a real beta. Doesn't fill that need for emotion or closeness all werewolves need. And just because your broody-mc-brooderson, all hard werewolf with no feelings, doesn't mean that you don't need connection, Derek. Even Batman needed Robin and Alfred and Julie Madison. Or Vicki Vale, Selina Kyle, oh, and Talia al Ghu. Take your pick. You got bad luck with woman, so either way they all work."

Derek sighed heavily, the air from his nose rippling the coffee in his cup. "Mickey. Stop."

"No!" Mickey leaned in close. "Seriously, think about it! As your Emissary--" He stopped cold, his eyes growing wide in fear as he realized what he'd just said. Derek, though, didn't look up from his coffee or react at all. They'd been hanging out a bit more recently, enough that Stiles felt comfortable giving Derek the business, but maybe not enough to bring around the E-word. Laura sure as hell hadn't reacted to it well. "I mean, uh, as a concerned friend looking out for your welfare, I think it's essential." He paused, waiting for Derek to do something other than look into his coffee like it had all the answers in the world. When nothing happened, Mickey offered up, "And think about Cora--she needs betas just as much as you do."

Derek rolled his eyes. Dramatic princess that he was. "Fine. Fine. I'll start looking--"

"I already have." Mickey grabbed his backpack, digging around in it for the spiral he'd started writing pack stuff into. "I've got it down to three potentials. Use to be twenty but honestly, you gotta take into account psychological health and shit, not just Accord mandates. I mean, Jackson Whittemore? He'd make a terrible werewolf." He threw down the spiral and started flipping. "So the three I got are pretty much perfect. Isaac, definitely, he needs a family as much as a pack. His dad's a total abusive asshole and he works at the  _cemetery_. A cemetery, Derek. How sad is that? I also think it'll be good for you 'cus he's a little emotionally fragile, what with his dad and all, and you could use someone you have to be gentle with--"

"Mickey."

Mickey talked louder, quicker, hoping somehow that if he talked enough Derek wouldn't shoot him down. "And then there's Erica. Alpha Law dream, I swear. She's got major epilepsy and the seizures are getting, like, super bad. If you bit her she'd be cured--and they love that shit--"

"Mickey." Derek said, just as quiet. "Shut. Up."

"And Boyd. Same thing with Isaac, needs a family. His sister died when he was super young, he was supposed to be watching her but she fell into some ice and drowned. He's kind of secluded himself, and I don't know much about his family life but I can imagine--"

Derek grabbed his notebook and threw it across the loft. It hit the spiral staircase that led up into... who knows what, Mickey had never been graced with that knowledge. He watched it bounce, flying open and letting all the loose paper's he'd printed off and put in perfect order fly out.

"Hey now--"

"Go home, Mickey."

"But-"

"Go. Home." Derek snarled, his eyes going red.

Mickey pouted, but when he didn't move Derek carefully put the coffee cup down, grabbed Mickey by the shirt collar, his backpack in the other hand, and nearly threw him out. Derek didn't say a word before slamming the door shut. "Just look at my notes Derek!" He yelled, knowing Derek would hear him even if he didn't. "Think about it!" When no reply came, he grabbed his backpack and headed out to his Jeep.

His job only required him to work on the weekends, 12 hours shifts for three days. Sometimes he could do more, pick up extra shifts when others dropped them, but he hadn't been called in--so on a Wednesday morning he had nowhere to go but home. Cole was his only friend and as a web designer who picked his own hours had decided those hours were between 5pm and 7am, wouldn't be up for a very long time, so literally, nowhere to go but home.

He drove slow, taking his time. He stopped at a gas station to get an energy drink and a candy bar, took the long way, but eventually made it home.

 _Babushka_ was in her chair, sitting at her little table in the front yard with her nurse, pretending to play dominoes. It comforted her, the nurse said, to sit and do a familiar task. Mickey knew it did no such thing,  _Babushka_ only liked the sunshine on her old bones, her magic singing with the warmth, but he'd never corrected Tabitha to believe otherwise. He walked slowly from his Jeep, walking across the lawn as Tabitha played the two player four-corners by herself,  _Babushka_ looking out into the sun with a dazed expression.

Her mind was pretty much gone, the blood-ties made into mush. Only every week or so, for about an hour, did she retain some of her normalcy. He made it a point to visit her then, doing everything he could sans-leaving work to sit and talk with her, connect to her mind, before she was lost again. For now, all he could do was kiss her wrinkled old forehead and grab a chair, playing four-corners with Tabitha as she talked pleasantly about her family, the annoyingness of trying to get both her girls into a good college, and about looking for a new car with her husband, who was a truck driver and almost never home. For an hour they played, talking back and forth until med-time came a calling and  _Babushka_ was wheeled inside, her mind crying out for the sun and then going completely dark as she lost everything, even her magic.

Mickey sighed, rubbing his eyes, feeling his own magic move out towards the sun to be heated. It was only seven--he was tired, he was bored, and he had nothing, now that Derek had kicked him out. 

For a while he sat, till he decided to say fuck it and went into his Jeep. Driving to the highschool was an old muscle memory, and he parked in the visitors parking lot, sitting around for a while until people started to flood the place. The teachers were already there, but then came the rich kids with cars, the people on bikes or walking--soon the buses.

He found Erica Reyes first, dropped off by her mom early, who had a shift working down at the power plant. He walked up to her as she waved goodbye to her mom, and spooked her a little. "Hey, sorry, didn't mean to sneak up on you," He said, lifting up his hands. She was huge-eyed and vulnerable looking, curled into herself and her baggy clothes, scars and acne on her face. "I'm Mickey," He offered. "Not a creep at all, just looking to talk to you."

She frowned. "C'mon, let's have a seat, yeah?"

"What do you want?" She demanded, not moving.

He held out a finger for her to wait, then dug around in his backpack, hoping one of the home-made pamphlets he'd made at the library had dropped down. He was in luck, there was one. He handed it to her with a flourish, proud of his Word Doc abilities. The title, in big, bold orange said: So, your thinking about being a werewolf. "Look it over, my numbers in there. Talk to your parents about it if your interested, they have to agree, you being a minor and all that. But..." He could see he'd lost her. She was looking at his pamphlet like it was diseased.

"What? Your just going around, trying to convert people into werewolves missionary style?" She asked, frowning.

"No-no. Just you. And, like, two others. Isaac Lahey and Vernon Boyd, if you know 'em. Their both in your grade. I think you guys are prime candidates. And well, it, uh, helps." He shrugged awkwardly, adjusting the glasses on his face with his finger. "I've heard a lot about your seizures. I'm guessing nothing can help, like you've tried all the medication." When she was silent, looking at him weirdly, he went on. "Uh, Carbamazepine. Some benzodiazepines. Perampanel."

She snorted. "You don't know anything about seizure medication, do you?"

"Hey," He smiled. "I'm just glad I remembered some of them fancy names."

She rolled her eyes, but actually looked at the pamphlet. "I have tried a lot. Sometimes, the side affects aren't worth it... but this?" She opened it, looking inside. "Being a werewolf is one thing, but can't you actually die from the bite?"

"Yeah, yeah you can." Mickey said honestly. "It's definitely something to consider. I'm not gunna lie, it's a heavy decision, one that will change your life, one way or the other, and you can't come back from it. You'll be a totally different species, even. Not only will your body be different, but you'll have to follow different laws, probably feel a little different--I don't know. I'm not a 'wolf." He shrugged. "But I hear it's like super everything, you know? Super senses, super strength, super emotions."

"If your not a wolf." She said, looking at the back. "Why are you doing this?"

"Because I care about the pack. And I honestly do think that you'll be a good fit for this. Not because of your epilepsy, don't get me wrong it did single you out--but there are a lot of people out here in the world with crippling illnesses. I chose you specifically because you fit. You're strong, you got presence. I'm a witch, yeah? I can see auras, kind of. Not fancy colors swirling around you, but when I look at you, I can tell things about you. To get the bite you gotta be able to fight, know it's what you want, not give in to the pull before you transition. You can do that. And, plus, I think you'd be a kick ass werewolf." He grinned at her. "Either way, please look it over. Talk to your parents, your doctor, your friends about it. See if it's for you." He pointed to the back. "My numbers on there. Mickey. And the Alpha--the guy you'd be, like tied to, not in a creepy master-slave way but a family way, he's the guy you'll definitely want to talk to. He'll be the one, you know, biting." He snapped his teeth playfully.

"I'll... look it over." She said, frowning as a bus pulled up.

"Oh! And this might be Boyd's bus. He's another guy I think will fit. See if you get along with him. A big part of pack is the connection--getting along is essential." He waited, but Vernon Boyd did not come from that bus. He stood with Erica, feeling weird with so many teenagers around him. "Uh, yeah. He's a big guy--"

"I know him." She said. "Sits alone at in the cafeteria a lot. Works at the ice-rink."

"Really? Maybe I'll bombard him there." 

"Please don't." Erica said, smiling shyly. "Your not really tactful. It'd be a bit creepy, if you weren't so spastic."

He laughed. "Dully noted. Will you talk to him? And Lahey?"

"Who?" She frowned.

"Shy guy. Lots of bruises and stuff. On the Lacross team?"

She shook her head, "I'll see."

"If not, I know where he works too." The idea of doing this in a graveyard put another creepy factor to it that just might work in his favor. "Well, uh, I better go. Good luck!" He waved awkwardly, then started heading towards his Jeep. He looked back once, to see Erica still standing there, looking at the pamphlet. It seemed good. A start.

* * *

To say Derek wasn't pleased was an understatement.

"I can't believe you'd go behind my back recruiting pack members!" He yelled, walking up to Mickey as he was getting in his Jeep to go to work. He even slammed Mickey into it, for good affect. His eyes were glowing red and he looked a few seconds away from sprouting fangs. 

"Oh! They called?" He asked, trying to squeeze into the Jeep to make as much space as possible between him and Derek.

"That--it's not the point!" Derek hissed. "You fucking went behind my back. They think I'm going to offer them the bite!"

"Wait, them? As in more than one?" None of them had contacted him, but he was pleased to hear they'd reached out.

"Mickey--focus!"

"No. Okay? I think it's good for you. For Cora! Their good people who could benefit a lot from this. We need something stable and healthy like a full pack. Why are you so against it? What's wrong with having more family--" He stopped, connecting the dots in rapid fire. "Oh, god. That's it, isn't it? Your torturing yourself with isolation because you don't want a new family."

"You are insufferable." Derek snarled, and promptly stormed away towards his idling Camaro on the street.

"It's not just about you Derek." Mickey said, voice low but knowing Derek could hear him. "It's about all of us. We need you to step up from your self-pity and do something." Derek didn't say a word, just pealed off from the curb at lightning speed.

 

 


	8. Life Moved On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A very brief, very sad chapter. Feels

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please please please comment!

Derek had a shoe box under his bed. That’s what he wanted right now. He wanted to go home, ignore everyone and everything, hole himself up in his room, and look through the damn shoe box. Of course, Cora had other plans.

“So… his twin is alive.” She said, after a few tense minutes of silence in the car. She’d picked him up from the police station without a comment, had driven nearly all the way to the preserve without saying a word. He’d almost thought he’d get away with her opening up the wounds he was trying to keep shut. Generally, she wasn’t an emotional person. The Hale death had burned it out of them both, had put anger in its place.

Honestly, he should have known better than to hope.

“Apparently.”

“I kind of always thought he would be. Everything Mick said about him… all that evidence he had of his supposed 'doppelganger' floating around...but a Hunter.” She shook her head, gripping the wheel hard. “It’s…”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t like it, Derek.”

“Me neither.”

“We need to do something about him."

“Yeah.”

And that was that. They drove down their lane into the preserve and stopped in the gravel driveway of their house. Erica’s beat up old Mini Cooper was already there, and the pickup that Isaac and Boyd shared. He knew they were waiting for him inside, so when Cora cut off the engine to the Camaro, Derek stayed still, not even unbuckling his seat belt.

He’d never really wanted to rebuild the old house. It had been too damaged down, held too many good and bad memories. He’d felt that it was good enough just getting the loft, but then Erica and Boyd decided to move in when they were 18, and the place was too cramped. He’d tried getting a house, but then Mickey, being Mickey, had decided to do what he did best and threw a curve ball into Derek’s plans. All of a sudden, his loft had been filled with blueprints and government contracts and business cards for construction and demolition companies—and all of Derek’s bookmarks for houses in Beacon Hills were deleted from his computer. And well… who was Derek to say no? No one could stop a determined Mickey who’d already made his mind up. Especially not Derek. Especially not when Erica and Isaac were so pleased by the idea that they all stayed up till two in the morning, planning decorative pillows to match the wallpaper, and trying to determine if they had enough room for a home entertainment system.

Derek had added his two cents. He told Mickey he hadn’t wanted the house to be exactly as it had been. He wanted something new, something to remind him of his new pack, not the old. And then he let Mickey run away with it.

He chuckled suddenly, surprising Cora, as he smiled up at the house. It _was_ different. Mostly Mickey, but some of Erica, and Isaac, and Cora, and even Boyd was thrown into the design. The entire basement was made into a workout area, with a small room in the corner with a steel door and mountain ash support beams—for full moons. Derek and the others had never needed to use it, but Mickey was a preplanner. He’d said it was for when Derek bit someone else. 

There was only one living room, which was warm and cozy and had a ridiculous state of the art entertainment system. There wasn’t a tv, but a projector that made the entire wall a movie screen, and surround sound that could blow sensitive werewolf ears to pieces. The kitchen was industrial, more like a restaurant than a house had the right to have with its walk-in fridge, two stove-tops, double oven, and massive island. There was even a huge doggy door in the back leading out to the porch, Mickey’s version of a joke. Every bedroom was its own suite and was made soundproof. There was even a library, which Mickey had slowly been starting to build before… before…

Derek sighed, putting his head into his hands and trying to breathe through the massive lump in his chest. Greif seemed to have followed him his entire life. Ever since Paige. He was nothing but grief. Mickey had slowly been carving into it to put happiness in its place, but now Mickey was gone.

“Go, Derek,” Cora said. “Go to your shoe-box. I’ll… explain things to them the best I can. But you’re going to need to come out and talk to them yourself.”

He nodded into his hands and was out of the car before she could retract her statement. His suite was at the very top, in the attic. Because of the three stories, and because Mickey had thought Derek would need private moments to escape without bothering the whole house—Mickey had always been a pre-planner—there was a set of stairs on the outside that led to his rooms. He ran up those, ignoring the way the wood creaked with his thundering footsteps, and unlocked the door before slamming it closed. He felt out of breath, scared. Feeling nothing but his own racing pulse, he ran to his bedroom and dove under the bed, grabbing the shoe box with fumbling fingers before resting it gently on the floor in front of him.

It was old and scratched, a remnant of the Adidas sneakers Stiles had bought on a whim. Derek had duck tapped it together after a bad night of nightmares, where he’d torn the entire thing apart to get to what was inside. Derek’s fingers lightly moved over the surface of the scratched up box, before opening it.

Inside was Mickey. Everything Derek had left. He was good at disassociating. Good a compartmentalizing. He’d known that if he had Mickey’s things lying about… if he reached over for his toothbrush and found Mickey’s there, he’d be crushed. A single little action and he’d remember that there was no one to use that toothbrush anymore. That the beautiful boy who’d owned it was gone. Just like he knew that if he saw the empty candy bar wrappers, he’d get annoyed that Mickey hadn't cleaned them up, and remember. If he walked into a closet full of flannel and baggy, novelty t-shirts. If he passed by the Mets poster on the way to the living room. If walked into the library and marveled a collection of books where werewolf lore was next to law books and _The Watchmen_ —Derek would remember. He'd remember where everything was, how everything used to be and would be haunted by a ghost. So he took all of Mickey’s things and he put it in storage. He printed off all of the photos he had, put all the videos on a flash drive, and completely erased Mickey from his computer. And, when the lack of Mickey became too much in his life… he had his little shoe box. A perfect balancing act between being suffocated by grief and being suffocated by lack of Mickey.

He grabbed the ring box he'd planned to give to propose and put it aside. He reached in and dusted off the baseball cap Mickey used to wear, and put it on his head. He gently stroked the paper-mache wolf Mickey had made him, before placing that aside, too. There was the sign Mickey had made, the first night they moved into the house; saying _Open for Business_ , which Mickey had placed over his naked ass as he’d waited for Derek to make his way up to their personal suite. And a pile of cheesy pickup lines Mickey had written on note cards to proposition Derek with. The Triskelion neckless with blood on it Mickey had worn when…

He grabbed the photo album, and he put it on his lap, and he fumbled through the pictures.

Mickey had made it years before they’d met, planning to fill the entire thing with photos of his life. Originally it had started as a way for Babushka to remember, when her mind started to go, but Mickey had said he’d developed a taste for it. He’d gotten about a fourth way through the book, and it was obvious what Mickey had scrapbooked and where Derek had taken over. Mickey’s pages were full of little notes, little trinkets. The photos were placed in special ways, with dates and memories and funny little sayings.

The first page that Derek opened to was of Mickey’s parent’s wedding day. There were three photos, two of Claudia and Noah’s wedding, which was held under a huge poplar tree. In one, they gazed adoringly at each other, in another, Claudia had bowed Noah backwards into a sweeping kiss. Between the two was the date of their wedding, and _They look so happy together! I wish I’d been born before they got married, just to see this day…_ and _Momma, you feisty fiend!_ The picture at the bottom was of Claudia and Noah after their reception, passed out from booze and leaning on each other in their wedding outfits on an old beat up couch still in Babushka’s living room. Claudia was drooling on Noah’s shoulder and Noah’s vodka bottle had tipped over, so the camera caught a long stream of booze falling on the floor. _Didn’t even make it to the bed_ was written beside it.

Derek found a smile on his face as he flipped.

The next two pages were both dedicated to baby pictures. On the left, was Mickey’s—on the right, was Stiles’. Identical in every way, only in Mickey’s photo’s, there was always a smile, and in Stiles’, there was always a funny expression, paint or food on his face. Derek use to gaze at the album with Mickey, enjoying listening to Mickey’s stories about each picture. Now, he let the images of Mickey's smiling baby face wash over him before he flipped.

School pictures of Mickey and Stiles. Mickey had arranged all his little square pictures in rows, from first grade through twelfth grade. It showed his chubby cheeks as a kid, his open smiles. Showed the different haircuts he’d gotten as a kid. The floppy bangs of fourth grade. The buzz cut of ninth grade. How he grew it out into a fashionable jelled mess by twelfth. Under each picture was a memory of the year, like a school quote. _Lydia Martin stuck gum in my hair_ was under ninth grade. _Lost my virginity at band camp to Heather!_ was under tenth. _Pudding is life_ under fourth.  _My parents died_ under sixth.  _I wished the entire year I had a nickel for every fight Stiles got in_ under seventh. On Stiles’ side, it was the same. Stiles had gone through mohawks, through baldness, through a man-bun faze, through blue hair, green hair, orange hair. By tenth grade, the gauges that Stiles now had were just earrings. And in every picture, there was something wrong with his face. A black eye, a missing tooth, scratches. Looking at both of them—it was like seeing a parallel universe of the same kid; the nerd and the delinquent. His little yearly memories were _Ran away from home ten times_ and _bound himself to the Nemeton_ and _stole the Christmas tree before Mom and Dad could throw it away, kept it in our closet all year long_.

Derek flipped. The next page was of the family. One photo, of the two of them, Mickey side by side with Stiles, in matching outfits. Stiles’ outfit was already ruined by stains and cuts, his shorts revealing his banged-up knees, his feet bare and dirty. Mickey looked clean and well organized next to him—like a before and after picture—with his clean shirt, tucked into his shorts, his high socks, his clean shoes. Mickey had on his give-it-all smile. There were pictures of them with Claudia and Noah. Pictures of Claudia and Noah with Babushka. Stiles had diligently written the dates of each picture, with little memories of what had happened when they were taken;  _Easter Egg Hunting with the brother!_ and  _Mom and Dad and Babushka after the 'sex talk'_ and ' _Visiting the Hale family again_ '.

The next picture was dedicated to Mickey’s parent’s funeral. The crime scene. The coffins. The grave site. The construction paper was black, the writing in silver sharpie. Mickey hadn’t written anything on the two pages, just drawn the same image that was on his parent's tombstone: the _varneighie_ symbol that had been the two’s relationship foundation.

When he was flipping through the scrapbook he used to skip the next page, but Derek diligently went through it anyway. It was black construction paper too—only the pictures were newspaper clipping and reports of the Hale Massacre. Images of each of Derek’s family members that he’d lost, glued together in a collage. He looked at them without seeing them.

Back to back grief. Derek had never hated the Stilinski’s for being the Hale’s downfall. He’d never resented the wards breaking being the thing that murdered his family—not like Laura had. In Derek’s mind, it was the fault of the pack who’d murdered his family. It had been a touching moment, to first look through the scrap book and see how, in Mickey’s eyes, his family’s tragedy was so closely linked to Derek’s. To see how Mickey cared, how his grief encompassed Derek’s grief too. It was probably the moment Derek knew, without any doubt, that he loved the babbling, busy-bodied boy who’d rebuilt his life from pain and anger. It was as he'd looked at this black covered page that he realized he was going to buy a ring, and he was going to adopt some kids, and he was going to live his life with Mickey.

He flipped quickly.

The next two were dedicated to Mickey’s teenage years. It was obvious Mickey had done all the pictures, most of them were of Stiles, with a few selfies of himself put throughout. Stiles looking over old books to figure out how to rebuild the wards. Stiles taking apart the planks in Derek’s old house to see how bad the rot had gotten. Stiles with a baseball bat and a sneer on his face. It was obvious which one was Stiles and which one was Mickey. Stiles was never facing the camera. He always had a sour look on his face, a determined, haunted look. Mickey was always directly facing the camera, screenshotting himself in one place or another, grinning his beautiful, uninhibited smile. Him, out in the woods with Stiles ghostly shadow next to him. Him, at a party next to a few people Derek had never met but knew from Mickey’s stories; getting drunk with Lydia Martin and Cole Kato. Only one picture of Mickey had been taken by someone else, and it was at a tattoo parlor, where Mickey was passed out on the floor from seeing a needle jammed into Stiles’ skin.

Derek flipped. Another black canvas. Stiles gone missing. A nineteenth birthday spent alone. Most of it was all silver sharpie. Mickey's rambling conspiracies about what had happened to his brother. He even had some sightings of his 'doppelganger'--a guy Mickey was 100 percent convinced was Stiles. It was always in weird, obscure places like Bueno Aires and Munich. It was clearly Stiles, too. Something Derek had thought impossible when he’d flipped through the photo album until today. But it had the man’s cold eyes, his goatee, the floppy hair, the gauges. The shape of a gun poorly concealed under a shirt.

He wished he hadn't doubted Mickey. That he'd done more than nod mutely when Mickey talked about his conspiracy theories, about his belief that his twin brother was out there acting as a hero, saving people. But he hadn't.

He flipped. A black canvas, Laura’s death. This Derek moved past it without looking. One wound was one too many, and Laura’s was… fresh. It ate away at him, in a separate but still hollow place that rested where he mourned the rest of his family, next to where he mourned Mickey.

The next page had Mickey and the pack was everywhere. Mickey enjoying a coffee with Erica, commenting on her bombshell looks, her confidence. Mickey wearing one of Isaac’s scarves. Another that Derek had taken, of Isaac, fully shifted and chasing after a laughing Mickey to get his scarf back. Of the picture Mickey had taken where Boyd showed off his ice-skating skills. Of him and Derek, sitting at the counter in the Loft, Derek frowning at him, and Stiles making one of his goofy ‘oh you love me’ faces.

He stayed there a while. Traces Mickey’s face with his finger, and flipped. He was smiling again at the ridiculous amounts of hearts everywhere. The construction paper was made out of hearts, and there were hearts on top of the photos, stamped around their laughing faces, over their cheeks, around their bodies. All of it was Mickey and Derek. One where Derek was kissing Mickey's cheek and the little shit was smirking into the camera. Of them sleeping together on the couch, almost an exact replica of Claudia and Noah's third wedding photo, but without the vodka. One of them in tuxes together. One of them lounging around on the porch in their boxers together. A few of them, naked in bed together. Pictures of them standing outside the newly rebuilt Hale House. Of them being caught fucking in the kitchen by Boyd, who'd taken a photo of them trying to get their clothes back on. Even the embarrassing photo of when Derek had put on lingerie for Mickey. 

This page is what he'd been looking for, what he'd been wanting since he'd gotten the call from Erica that Mickey's doppelganger was in the coffee shop. He'd gone diligently through the first part of the scrapbook to get to these pages, and he wasn't going to go beyond. So he stayed there, and he looked at the life he’d had with Mickey for that beautiful, all-encompassing moment of happiness, and pretended that life hadn’t moved on.

* * *

 

He reached for his phone as it beeped at him. He looked at the glowing screen, realizing a few hours had passed since he'd rushed up the house to look at the scrapbook. Cora had texted, telling him it was time, that everyone was waiting and dinner was made.

He knew what the food would be too. His floor was too high up, but it would be Mickey's recipe for Chicken Parmesan. The Comfort Food to End All Comfort Foods, he'd called it. Boyd made it every time Derek was having a bad day. It helped--but it also didn't help at all.

Instead of putting his stuff back into the shoebox, he went into his contacts and pulled up Laura's phone number. He texted her.

_Hi, sis._

He paused, waiting even though there was no reason to wait.

_I miss you._

_And yeah, I need something--that's why I'm texting. Always do, right?_

_Today, I met Mickey's twin brother. Stiles. I don't know if you remember him from when we were all kids...but he's probably just like he was when he was younger._

_A pure asshole._

_But he looks just like him, Laur. I swear. He smells like him too, like my Mickey._

_I miss him so much it hurts, Laur._

_His face was so twisted up in grief and anger... he looked almost like Mickey did... when I_

Derek closed his eyes. He deleted the last message before sending another.

_I don't know what to do here, Laur. I really need your advice. He's not Mickey, but it's almost like it doesn't matter. I saw him, and I got close to him, and it all fell apart._

_I need you, Laur_.

Unable to think of anything else to say, he put away his things, placing the scrapbook down, then taking off the hat and putting it on top. The sign, the notecards, the paper mache wolf. Before he closed the box, he opened looked at the ring, snapping open the velvet box. It was simple, grey stone weaved into a simpler version of the Stilinski-Yovonova  _Varneighie_ symbol. He'd never given it to Mickey, he'd always thought the time wasn't right. He used to hide it in random places he was sure Mickey would never look; a sock drawer, the workout room, under the Camaro's seats. As far as Derek knew, Mickey had never found it. He'd also never pressed to propose himself. 

He looked at the ring, and he thought of soulmates, and he snapped it closed and put it in the box. Shutting it, he slid it under his bed and walked down the stairs to take comfort in the living family he had left.

 

 

 


	9. The Echo or the Answer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Looonnnnggggg timmee. I'm gunna write more--doing it right now that I got the coffee and the time off :)

 

Stiles dreamed.

He woke up to Lito's bare body, half on top of him and snoring in a way Stiles never remembered Lito snoring. He shoved the body off of him, getting out of the bed and onto hardwood floor that was cold and unforgiving compared to the bed and the warmth of the Lito's body. He knew, in a backward, dream kind of way, that Lito had been an incredibly light sleeper and even moving on the bed would half wake him up. Yet the body sprawled there above the sheets, pale and gloriously naked, didn't even stir. 

He kissed the messy head of black hair and walked away. Through unfamiliar, shadowed halls down two flights of stairs and into a kitchen that looked like it belonged in a restaurant. He ignored the double fridges and the expensive looking walk-in freezer for a cupboard the size of someone's walk-in closet and grabbed some popcorn. He hated popcorn. He was just throwing it into the microwave when he heard sleepy footsteps walking up into the kitchen behind him.

"I woke up and you weren't there," A grumbly, sleepy voice said. Definitely not Lito's Hispanic accented voice. 

Stiles realized there was a gun in his hand. He turned slowly to watch a still naked Derek Hale coming up to him, eyes sleepy and reflective in the moon's light. His smile was small and private and oh-so-beautiful. The spell of his lovely face was broken as he realized who was standing there in front of the microwave.

Stiles lifted his arm up. He took aim at Derek's face. Horror and anguish and acceptance filled his beautiful features. Stiles shot him in the head just as the corn started to pop. 

* * *

 

Stiles screamed as he woke up. Allison, lying next to him, kicked him in the side to shut him up.

He clutched at his bare chest, feeling his heart, feeling his magic roil and tumble in his chest like living lava. He tried to catch his breathing but it wasn't working. He was too scared. Scared of what though? Scared of Derek? Scared of shooting someone in cold blood? Scared of how that dream had felt more like a memory? He didn't know.

He looked down at Allison, seeing the reflection of her sleeping there as a reflection of his dream. She was equally as bare and pale and beautiful as Derek, though in a more human way. Scars littered her white skin--most of which he'd been there to witness. Claw marks against her ribs when they'd gotten attacked by a chimera in the Cabinet of Montana. A gunshot from Kate Argent herself in the shoulder, a through and through. Tiny little bumps and scrapes that had turned silver because of training or running or whatever it was they did on a regular basis to risk their lives. She was laying on her back, half in sheets and half not, her body still sleepy and slow from the sex they'd had before bed. She had little hickies running up and down and around her small breasts. Her breathing was slow and even. Her regal eyebrows were drawn together as, in sleep, she recognized his freak out.

He wasn't supposed to have sex with his partner. It was one of the Hunter rules. One they broke fairly regularly, though never of them had grown an attachment to each other outside of basic love. He was too distant and emotionally unavailable for her--she was too female for him. While he could enjoy sex with her, he just couldn't fall in love with females like he could men.

Like... like Derek.

Stiles threw himself out of bed and stalked over to the small kitchen. He was reaching into the second to last cupboard above the sink before he was thinking about it, drawing out a coffee mug without looking. There was a machine on the counter, tucked near the fridge. He plugged it in and filled it with water and some grinds he found easily in the bottom drawer of the fridge and waited. 

He still had the mug in his hand. He looked down at it for the first time, realizing he recognized it. It was ugly and handmade and green, with a howling wolf painted on its side and a small scrawl of a signature he couldn't read but knew said  _Isaac Hale_. A gift from the beta once he was adopted by Derek, saved from his abusive father... why... 

Stiles was moving to shatter it before he knew what he was really doing. And he was stopping his action, grabbing the mug safety in both hands as if it was precious and valuable before he could throw it. As if he couldn't bear to see it shattered into a bunch of twinkling white and green painted pieces against the concrete wall. He shouldn't know this mug, but he did. He recognized it and its history as if he had been there when it had been painted--the right wolf's flank had been particularly hard for Isaac to paint and Erica had helped, making it even uglier--and been there when it was given. Had seen it used a thousand times over. For some reason, he even felt  _sad_ that it was here, in this forgotten place, instead of in a home when it could be regularly used and commented on. Looking at it, he felt the same kind of glee he got when he watched Lilly shit her diaper and saw Scott's 'thinking face' on her chubby little cheeks. 

"I'm going insane," Stiles said. That explained it. "I'm going insane."

That, or being in Beacon Hills was the equivalent to dissolving.

Stiles moved quickly. He put the mug down safely on the marble counter before rushing over to his things and taking out some jeans and a shirt. He shoved his feet into flip flops--he'd regret it, he knew if he had to run--and grabbed a hunting knife instead of a glock. He grabbed his rental's car keys before he grabbed Isaac's mug and rushed out of the door before Allison could wake up. 

There was supposed to safeguard against this, ways that Allison would be alerted if people came in our out of their safe house. They'd been partners so long that the job had naturally fallen to Stiles's domain. He set wards up in all entry points and filtered his magic into the air to alert him if anything happened. If something was wrong, if there was an intruder or one of the perps escaped the safe house,  _he_ was the safeguard to warn her. He didn't think it had occurred to Allison that he was the charge she was supposed to have safeguards against. Neither one of them assumed he was so stupid as to leave when directly ordered to stay. But he had to go. He had to.

He drove the rental quickly and without looking at GPS found the old house  _Babushka_ and  _Dedushka_ had bought when moving to America. Noah and Claudia had lived here, too, for a time, before buying their own house as newly-weds in the same neighborhood. As their medical bills got too much, they sold the house and moved back here. Stiles and Mickey had shared a bedroom together on the bottom floor behind the kitchen--a renovated garage space--between their parent's death and... Stiles leaving. He supposed Mickey had stayed in that room for longer than that, probably until he moved in with Derek and the Hale Pack. At the moment the house was still and empty and dark, not showing any signs that it had been sold or that people still lived in it. It had the same porch-set out in the front. The same folded up cards table that  _Babushka_ would bring out into the lawn to play dominoes. 

As he parked the car and walked up to the house, he found that the evil looking gnome in the lawn still hid the spare key. He used it to open up space and enter the dusty old house. It still smelled like stale cigarette smoke, baking brown bread, and spiced magic. Earth magic. Druid magic. His grandmother's. 

He walked past the cluttered living room with it's faded and mismatched old lady furniture. Past the figurines of faeries and bookshelves--now empty--that used to hold folklore books of old countries and old magic and written down spells from long gone Russian families. He walked past the bathroom under the stairway and into the kitchen with it's faded little table and it's abandoned ashtray and ugly yellow cabinets. He put down the equally ugly green mug and walked into the renovated garage bedroom at the very back of the house.

It used to be that the massive room was split into two, like an overly large dorm-room. Each bed had been shoved against the opposite walls with a window set against a badly painted and poorly erected wall. Shelving above each bed would hold their different things; Stiles had his magic books and his comics and his novelty gay porn books--Mickey had his cigarette pack and extra wheels for his longboard and his notebooks filled with... god, what had they been filled with? Notes from school? A diary? Spells? What?

He couldn't remember. And it was no longer there to see. Now there was only one bed, set directly under the round window and away from the walls like a proper adult would want. Posters were taken down in favor of paintings done directly onto the walls; of faeries and wolves and logos and quotes. One particular quote was rather large, done directly over the image of a howling wolf and two identical men with large brown eyes, it said:  _Moon drunk monster/ beautiful and strange/ howl your melancholy question/and tell me/ which you dread more/ the echo or the answer_. There was an old fashion radio on a dresser that used to be Stiles's--there was still the stickers and spray paint all over it--and he pressed play as he saw there was still a CD in there. The electricity was gone but the batteries still worked. The CD started to play a bright guitar sound and a bluesy voice.

The dresser was empty of clothes. The personal effects had been taken. Now only an old mets poster was still up and a bunch of boxes with an unfamiliar, slashing handwriting on it.  _Mickey's bathroom stuff. Mickey's bedroom stuff. Mickey's clothes. Mickey's personal stuff._  He opened the box near the bottom that declared it Mickey's personal stuff. Opening it up, he saw a bunch of random shit. There was a keychain, a book of Stiles's,  _The Way of Kings_. A pair of glasses, boxy and hipster looking. A bunch of bottles of liquid and a vape set up, complete with multiple tanks. A contemporary script for some high school play,  _Hamlet_. Some swimming goggles and an old latex cap. A sex toy. A few cartridges from an N64. One of Stiles's old brass knuckles with the rune spells on them. And there, at the bottom, scrapbooks. Mickey had loved scarp books.

He pulled out the top one, headless of the stuff on top that collapsed down the bottom of the box. He carried it under his arm and left the bedroom that was at once familiar and unfamiliar as he grabbed the mug. He walked past  _Babushka_ 's old room--knowing it was empty and gutted now that the medical technology that had kept her alive was gone and returned to the store. He walked up the stairs, past the herbs room that was equally empty and gutted and into the last bedroom on the left that had been his grandparent's room before  _Babushka_ got too sick and his parent's had taken it over.

It was exactly like he remembered. Small, cramped, with a sensibly sized bed and an overfilling closet. An old clock sat next to an enchanted picture frame of Claudia and Noah holding their darling baby boy. The picture moved, like in one of the Hogwarts films, and Claudia's smile lit up over and over again as Noah rocked the boy in his arms, the boy's laughter silent and demanding and starting over and over again in a gif-loop. 

There was only one boy. Brown haired, disheveled, with a broken tooth and a devilish gleam in his eyes. Stiles had never been able to tell if it was him or Mickey in the picture. It was the only one, literally the only one, where it wasn't immediately obvious whose soul resided beneath those whiskey-colored eyes. And seeing it was all Stiles needed to confirm that drawing horror that was unfolding in his head. He quickly turned and fled. 

* * *

 

Lydia Martin, for some reason, had moved back to Beacon Hills after she finished college early. She hadn't gone after her PhD like Stiles had always thought she would but instead decided to go aid the Accords from her own home. A home that was... well, more a mansion than a home, which Stiles guessed explained the reason she was an Accords worker instead of a poor doctorate student.

Stiles had no idea how he knew where she lived or what she did for a living. He had no idea how he knew anything about her after they graduated high school. He could see her though, clearly in his head, now a fully grown woman to the young high school girl he'd once known. She still had that same flaming red hair, those same round and perfectly made up eyes under arched eyebrows. Same gloriously round mouth with all it's perfect shades. He parked in her driveway with his rental and left the mug and untouched scrapbook in his passenger seat as he made his way up her drive to her front door. He knocked out it loud and persistent before going for the doorbell. He knew it was his impatience that made him do it. She was always awake this time of night.

How did he know that? He had never once come up here on an early morning after a fifteen-hour research binge to drink tea with her and talk over everything that he had learned. He had never requested her strong, still, wise presence to clear his mind of all the jumbled and chaotic thoughts the research had given him. He had never gone to her after realizing that yes, he was very much in love with Derek Hale and freaking out.

Yet he could remember it all very clearly. The young terrifying woman that Stiles had half been in love with in high school had turned into one of the most competent women he had ever met. He had gone to her about everything, loving the way she could see through everything and yet understand why the subterfuge was there. He had loved how after taking one solid look at him she could see into his very soul and understand everything--everything--that bothered him, be it arcane research or Derek fucking Hale. So he stood on her doorstep and he shoved his hands into his pockets and he waited for her shrewd gaze to look him over and her mouth to open and tell him everything that was wrong with him. 

Stiles did not expect Derek fucking Hale to open the door. 

He blinked at the Alpha as the Alpha blinked at him. Very slowly Derek Hale's upper lip started to peel back from his elongated teeth. "What do you think--"

"Ah, Stilinski, right one time." A high, girlish voice said. Derek Hale stepped aside without looking as Lydia Martin came forward in a fashionable and comfortable looking aquamarine silk robe. It looked a bit like a geisha outfit and hugged her breasts rather nicely. Her hair was piled up high on her head and little coils of red fell around a delicate and pale neck. Stiles realized he was staring as Derek snarled again and he looked up from Lydia's chest to her smiling face. "Come in. Both of you." She turned and walked away, knowing they would both follow.

Stiles stepped up quickly, not to follow but to get into Derek's bubble. He looked sideways at the bigger man, noticing the dark circles under Derek's eyes and the way his mouth was tightly drawn on his face. Stiles had never noticed the markers of stress on the man before, but now it was glaringly obvious. Stiles choked on whatever comment he was about to make as he decided to follow Lydia into her house and towards the back of the kitchen. "Did you know?" Derek snarled, stomping past Stiles as the door slammed shut. "Did you know Stiles was alive?"

"Stiles?" Lydia asked, arching an eyebrow and making tea. Stiles sat on a stool as she did, propping a hand of his fist and watching Derek snarl at her from the edge of the modern kitchen. "That's your name?"

Derek frowned harder. Stiles smiled at that, somehow endeared by his face--till he remembered the expression on it as a bullet slammed into his forehead. Gulping, he turned away to stare at the crystal counter. "Ah... most people here in Beacon Hills don't remember me. We used to have the same classes in High School. But, uh, most people remember Mickey instead. Remember him."

"Interesting. I  _don't_ remember you at all." Lydia said like she found the concept fascinating. "I know Mickey had a twin who died, but that's it." She looked Stiles over, her lips pursed. "Very interesting."

"Yeah." Stiles grabbed the cup of tea she slid him. He frowned at the taste. "You put sugar in this?"

"It's how Mickey liked it." She grabbed it back. "How do you?"

"Ah, milk. Soy. I hate real milk."

"I don't have soy, honey." She said, face patiently waiting.

"Then black." Stiles shrugged. For some reason, he had too separate feelings in him at this meeting--both comfortable and like this was going terribly wrong. "So, ah... hi, Derek. Glad to see you." He said, looking sideways at the staring and growling werewolf.

Derek snarled. "Fuck off."

"Right." Stiles grabbed the next cup offered to him and took a sip. As the fine china rested on his lips he said, "Just so you know, I heard about how he died. I don't blame you anymore." 

Silence greeted that. Derek looked away so Stiles turned his attention to Lydia, who was again looking at him like a fascinating test subject. "You're a Hunter." She said. "I'm guessing Red Hand?"

"You--how'd you tell?" He asked, frowning. "Can you like, sense the death on me or something?" It was disturbing to imagine that all the people he'd killed were somehow... shown on him. On his skin. He knew some of the extreme Hunter's placed their kill ratio on their skin, getting little tick marks or tattoos to show their deadliness. He'd never done that, though. Never felt the desire to show his deadliness. Was it on him anyway?

She smirked her pink lips. "No. I can see that tattoo on the inside of your right elbow." She pointed a manicured hand to... yeah, his Red Hand Tattoo. The emblem of his Hunter division was displayed proudly in the crook of his arm. "It takes a special person to join Red Hand, they usually only reserve it for veterans or ex-military. How'd you get into it?"

"Trial by fire, I suppose," Stiles said, frowning at her and putting the cup down. It needed milk. He knew better than to tell her that, though. "Chris Argent came up to me after I killed half the Satomi Pack when I was 18 and told me it was either prison or joining the Hunters."

"So you could be watched."

"And trained." He finished. He took another reflexive sip and put the cup down.

"And you did well." She surmised.

"I'm the best of the best."

"At killing." Derek snarled. "Your the best at  _killing_."

It had been a while since he felt the shame that came from his job and it didn't come to him now. "Only those who deserve to be killed." Stiles shrugged, remembering a time where he would have tried to kill Derek Hale for such a comment. When the guilt over his job had eaten a hole into his soul. "I kill the things like Ella Mass, Derek. The creatures who think they can abuse their power and hurt the weak. I... I save people like Mickey when I can." For as long as he remembered he'd always wanted to be the kind of guy who saved people.

"Too bad you weren't here to save him." Derek shot out, obviously still angry.

Stiles, though, was surprisingly not angry. Tired, yes, annoyed, yes, but not angry. it was weird, not to be angry anymore. He felt heavy and sad. He looked to Lydia, wondering if somehow she was the one responsible. She was still just looking at him like he was the worlds most interesting bug, though. He looked away at Derek. "Your right." He agreed, watching Derek's anger dissolve again. His default seemed to be  _sad_. Guess they both had that in common. "I wasn't here and it's my fault. If I had told him I was alive he wouldn't have gone to mourn me at the Nemeton. He would never have gotten into Mass's way and he'd still be alive."

"And Beacon Hills would be a living nightmare," Lydia said, leaning a hip against her counter and crossing her arms under her large chest. "A black Nemeton."

"True." He nodded to her and took another sip. He really should push it away. 

"What?" Derek asked, still not coming into the kitchen now that Stiles was here.

"Too many blood sacrifices," Lydia said, looking at Stiles still. "First Paige." Then the name was like a lightning bolt down Stiles's spine. He  _knew_ that name. How did he know that name? "Then you bound yourself to the tree. Then that Blood Briar Witch, then Mickey's death... ah... it's so close now." Her brown eyes were distant and far away, looking into a veil Stiles could never penetrate. "So very close. I think that's why the Hell Hound is here."

"Hellhound," Derek growled.

"That deputy?" Stiles asked, remembering the smell of ashes and fire.

"Yes. He's rather cute, don't you think?" She winked at Stiles, then stalked over to her fridge. "Anyway--that's all well and good and Nemeton's are absolutely  _fascinating_ but I study one for a living. I'm much more interested in you, Stilinski." She grabbed some milk from the fridge and without asking him poured some into his cup. He smiled as he grabbed it, stirred it with his finger, then took a sip. It was  _milk_ but it was better than black tea. "Tell me," She said, putting the jug back. "How is it possible that you're only half a soul, Stiles." She smiled like a viper. "Or I guess, tell me how it is that your half soul is mending to heal itself."

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think! I was going to expand this a lot more, I think, but then I forgot how I was going to do it so now it's a bit rushed.


	10. I will be your monster. I will be your protector.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little explanation before the action
> 
> If any of you are confused about how this turned up--please look over the chapters before. I changed them as I went along so it has more hints and whatnot to this "soul split" thingy. The only chapters I didn't touch were Mickey's POV

Stiles walked up to the roots of the Nemeton. About a half hour of mindless walking through the Preserve and _it_ had found him. Its call was a low, welcoming throb below the ground, the roots twisted and half upraised, the stump, where it had been cut down, nothing more than a bloated plate. It used to be—and Stiles had no idea _how_ he knew this because the tree had been cut down long before he was born—that the tree’s energy would run up and down the length of the trunk and through the branches. It used to be that the leaves themselves were little magical conduits and that when the wind shook them, a little energy carried through the air. When they fell, they littered the surrounding grounds with magical potential, like little seedlings made to decompose and then spread nutrients into the surrounding Preserver. It was why, even decades later, the Preserve was still so huge, so strange and wild and resistant to invaders like hikers and campers. Only the Hales had ever felt safe on these lands, their ancestors somewhere down the line binding themselves to the tree for protection that lasted generations.

Again, he had no idea how he knew this.

He walked up to it and looked down at the small cellar door that led beneath the roots and into a small cave-like depression. There used to be water there, beneath the roots. The tree used to float in its own magical pool. The pool had dried up and the roots that used to dangle in its water had shriveled up and now there was just dead space, dirt, and dangling dead roots. The Nemeton hadn’t felt moisture there for centuries until… until Paige. Derek’s Paige.

Stiles remembered her now. After Derek had stormed out of the house like he had caught fire Lydia had explained the finer points of Stile’s life that Stiles had seemed to have forgotten over the years. She reminded him that he was half a soul. She reminded him what it was like, in his childhood, being around the Hale Pack. She reminded him of Deucalion’s deception—of Ennis’s attack. Instead of going straight for the Hale Pack or anything that would be a direct threat against the once great and prosperous Alpha Talia… they decided to go after her youngest son’s heart. They went after a young high school girl named Paige that he had fallen in love with. She hadn’t survived the bite and Derek had taken her here. He’d slashed her throat to save her pain of a slow poisoned death and her blood stained the dead roots below the Nemeton.

The first bleeding.

The Nemeton’s corruption had started long before that, though. The Druids that had sheltered and worshiped it fled from another Christian purge. The water died. The tree was bound to a werewolf Pack instead of a real coven or nature-mage, bound to a single family instead of a power source. The tree was cut down in the 1940’s. Someone had put a fucking Nigitsune spirit within the rings. The Nemeton was already dying by all this, it’s energy being sucked out. The town itself was dying because of that fact, slowly being eaten away by the vacuumed of power here in the preserve. And then Paige died, and the tree started its descent into darker power. Someone else had come, some other killing… a woman had been resurrected by these roots. Stiles touched them gently with his fingertips as he studied the stump. A powerful Druid had turned Darach here… the tree had turned further. And then Stiles had come. Added his blood, his soul, his entire being to the tree for power.

Had he helped? Had he made it worse?

Stiles jumped onto the tree stump and sat in the middle. He flicked his power at the low, ugly buzzing of the Nugitsune still strapped there. It lay a little more dormant, a little quieter as he began his meditation.

It used to be that Stiles couldn’t meditate to save his life. It was important for any mage of any kind with any power to be able to center themselves and their minds, free the floodgates and get into that special kind of headspace where there was no troubles, no worries, no anxiety… just the here and now and the magical current.

He’d been able to do it as a child, he could remember that. And then… then what? He could only remember having power, only remember being furious and angry. He could remember that there hadn’t even been an attempt at meditation when he was a teenager, after the Hales had died. He’d had so much of power that having any emotional plug-ups had seemed redundant. Who fucking cared? He could channel his energy. He could rebuild the wards. He could slaughter the Satomi ‘wolves. And fuck, had he slaughtered the Satomi ‘wolves. They used to be a rather large, stable pack centered a bit more northward than Beacon Hills, closer to Seattle than Oregon. Stiles had killed fifty of their ‘wolves in a single night. A furious, horrible, blood-letting night in the Preserve, trapping them with his own wards as they tried to flee him and bashing their skulls in with his baseball bat one swing at a time. He’d felt the Hunters clawing at his wards that night, trying to get in. He hadn’t let them enter until every Satomi ‘wolf was dead. Then he let them take him in cuffs.

He should have died that night. With no blood-ties, it would have been easy for them to kill him and send him back on his way to the Nemeton. He could remember wanting that. Wanting release and death. He’d been so fucked in the mind by then… but Chris had decided that Stile’s particular talents shouldn’t be wasted. That he was too young to die. At the time Stiles had felt like Chris was a ruthless cut-throat that used any tool available, no matter how bloody or awful to get a job done… but now Stiles knew the man better. The guy was a bleeding fucking heart. He’d looked at a young mage that was the same age as his daughter and just couldn’t kill him. So they killed him off legally, put him underground in Red Hand where no one had a legal identity and everyone had a fucked up story filled with bloodshed and horror. Stiles had hesitated for the barest of seconds before agreeing.

He’d thought… what? What had he thought? Stiles gave up on meditation, his thoughts too flustered to even try. He’d thought… thought… thought he could try being a hero, in Red Hand. Yeah, that was it. He’d wanted to be a fucking hero. A glorious defender of the weak, a light in the darkness, no matter how bloody, that drew the monsters so the unprotected could live in darkness and not know what kind of horrors existed in the world. He wanted to take the brunt of the world’s pain so that no one looked like Derek Hale had, the night Paige died.

It always went back to Derek. Back to this tree. Back to the Hale’s. Stiles had bound himself here the night after Paige had died. He hadn’t really known what he was doing, despite all the research, just knew that the tree would give him power and that his soul—his soul would be here, always. He’d thought at the time that it was a romantic notion. He’d be here, protecting his family forever, even when he wasn’t here.

He hadn’t known that it would split up his soul. Hadn’t known that it would take the fragile psyche of a young boy in pain and grief and split him in two, deciding to take all of the unique contradictions that rested within a person and divide it up evenly. A boy had walked into the roots, had said the words, had given a little blood… and two boys walked out.

Stiles had no idea who was real and who wasn’t. Who had been the original and who was a copy? He didn’t think it even worked in such black and white terms. Like heroism… it was muddled, confusing. Both Stiles _and_ Mickey had been real. Mickey had gotten all the goodness and kindness and spasticity… Stiles had gotten all the bloodthirst and anger and torment. Magic blurred over the rest. Changed minds, memories, documents… covered it all over like a shroud of mist so even Stile’s damn parents hadn’t really known why they suddenly felt so repelled by one of their little boys. They only knew something was terribly wrong. Only knew that the Nemeton had taken something precious in exchange for power.

The decision had ruined everything. A single act of desperation to be kind and strong and save Derek Hale from the horrors of loss and hardship had sent them all down the vacuum of the Nemeton’s dark power. Now Derek Hale was worse off than ever before.

Stiles was no hero.

He opened his eyes. He touched the rings with the tips of his fingers, feeling the unnatural smoothness of it. Why had the Nemeton split his soul? What had it wanted out of that? He had no idea. Mickey would have known, he was sure of it, but Stiles was too fucked in the head to wrap his mind around the concept. He just knew that because he drained the Nemeton of its remaining power only darkness was left. The Nigitsune. The Darach’s connection. The blood of Paige.

Two years after Stiles had gained a brother… he lost a Pack. There had been a lot of trouble. Lots of rival ‘wolves coming into the territory. Lots of dark creatures being drawn to the land. Lots of witches, ghouls, a few fae. His parents were feeling the backlash by holding the warding system and trying to trick the Nemeton into giving up its connection to Stile’s soul. Maybe they’d gotten a little too close and touched the Nigitsune’s power a little too closely. Maybe that’s how their madness had started. Either way as their minds went, the wardings went down and the Pack, thinking they were safe, had no warning before each and every single one of their 150 members were brutally tortured and killed in their own homes. The blood had been so strong that the wood had rotted from it.

And Stiles had been broken. He blinked through the tears as he realized that he _had_ a blood-tie, just not a witch’s blood tie. He had the Nemeton’s connection to the Hales. It was why his magic hadn’t hurt Derek in the coffee shop. Why he had stayed in the woods to kill the Satomi Pack. Why he was so furious to contemplate his brother belonging to another Pack. Why he had never come back, never even tried to reach out to Mickey. He had been searching… for Derek. For Laura. For Cora and Malia and Peter. He’d just been too fucked in the head to realize he was doing it in all the wrong ways.

And now… now he had them back. Only it was all so fucked. Mickey was dead. Mickey had _belonged_ with Derek. Had been the person who could break through Derek’s hardened shell of loss and pain and make him heal. Had been the one person who had a life worth living. And he was dead. And now his memories were flooding into Stiles. Like a last ‘fuck you’—he was showing Stiles how very little _he_ had lived.

Stiles put his head down. He rested it against the smooth rings of the tree.

War was coming. Whatever had happened during the Massacre, whoever had killed the Hales, it was still out there. And now the Black-Briar Coven was coming to seek their blood-revenge. And the Satomi’s still felt entitled to the land. War _was_ coming.

And Stile was going to make sure he took down every motherfucking one of them before Derek and his Pack realized that their fates were fucked. Before they realized what Stiles had done to them.


	11. 562341: One Last Hope

Derek heard the car coming up the drive. He waited outside on the porch as a 2018 Subaru drove up the drive and parked.

It was the female hunter, the one he’d talked to on the phone the day of his arrest. With her was a passenger—one he ignored for the deceptively soft and feminine woman who smelled like gunpowder and gun oil and wolfsbane and hemlock. She was dressed in tactical gear that covered her from neck to wrist in tight, strange black fabric. It showed her muscles and the holsters that was now empty, though he could smell the gun she had hidden… somewhere. Somewhere on her body, there was a gun filled with fresh wolfsbane bullets.

She closed her car door and waited for the passenger to get out and join her before walking up to the porch steps. Neither she nor the stranger came up to greet him—and he liked that. Liked the idea that they were intimidated by him, that they were wary of being in his territory.

“Hello, Alpha Hale,” The passenger—a tall man with an unobtrusive look and personality—said, straightening his tie. “My name is Danny Mahealani, I’m a representative from the Accords.” He said, nodding shallowly. He seemed to have a perma-smile on his face. Usually, that would piss Derek off, but it worked on him, made him seem friendly in his pressed black suit. “May we come in?”

“Don’t know why you’d need to.” Derek snarled. “We can have a meeting right here.”

“Please, Derek, this will go a lot faster if you cooperate.” The Huntress said.

“I’ve heard those words before. I don’t care.” Derek tightened his crossed arms as he heard Cora walking up to the door behind him. He didn’t turn as she walked up and called out for them to enter. He just stepped aside, watching the Hunter as she followed Danny into the house. Her hands were at her sides, loose and non-threatening. Not that it mattered. A Hunter could seem non-threatening one second and covered in blood the next.

They walked into his living room and Danny settled down on the couches by Cora’s instructions. The Huntress stood behind him, further away from the pack. Her smell filtered in through the air, tainting it, staining the home’s smell. Boyd and Isaac and Erica were on the couches, waiting. Watching for the first sign of trouble, their eyes trained on her. Danny made himself at home, putting down a case on the coffee table and taking out a laptop. “I’ll be recording the meeting so that I can put it into the official notes. Let it be known that this is a rather unofficial debriefing before we go to the more official court hearing for Hale vs. Hunter 562341.”

“Stiles. His name is Stiles.” Erica said, wrapped up in Boyd’s arms and hugging a mug of tea to her chest.

“That, unfortunately, is not information that we can put into the case. The agent in question no longer has his birth name, just a number.”

Derek had no idea what to think about that. The man he’d met… was alive. Real and alive and strange and deceptive looking. It was odd to imagine that he was just a number to these people, an agent of a cause that had swallowed him up and taken his name. He shouldn’t feel sympathetic—he _didn’t_ feel sympathetic—but the idea was wrong. Stiles was a person. A person who had Mickey’s features and moles and hair color and whiskey-colored eyes.

Was Mickey just a number, too? Dead now, he was a statistic for Beacon Hill's body counts? “Why?” He asked, settling down on the Lazy-Boy so he could watch the Hunter.

“Because Stiles Stilinski is registered as dead,” Danny said, shrugging in his suit. It was an inoffensive gesture that didn’t put Derek at ease. “He went missing at the age of 18 and was pronounced dead by his family three years later. His headstone is in his family plot in Clayton’s Cemetery.”

“He’s not dead. He’s alive and harassing my pack.” Boyd said, his hand rubbing up and down Erica’s arm.

“Yes, but he is _legally_ dead. His identity is now Hunter 562341.” Danny insisted. He typed a few things on his laptop and then looked up. “Now, before we start this meeting I’d like to inform you, since you’ve made this case, that Hunter 562341 has gone missing. He escaped from the safe house three days ago and it would be… prudent to inform you in case he tries to get into contact—”

“He has,” Isaac said. He was looking at the mug of tea in Erica’s hands—one they’d painted together a few years back when he became officially adopted into the Hale family. It was an ugly thing, reminding Derek of laughter and catching Isaac, Erica, and Mickey snickering over the kitchen table in a shabby apartment with paint covering their faces and hands.  

Danny leaned forward. Behind him, the Hunter looked tense as she stood in parade stance. “Was aggressive contact made?”

“No...yes.” Derek rolled his neck from side to side, trying to get it to crack as Isaac reluctantly answered.

“Please, clarify.”

“Three nights ago I met him at Lydia Martin’s house,” Derek said, sighing. “He came in around two or three in the morning.” He tried not think about that night and so far he's been pretty successful. He didn’t like the idea of…

Mickey and Stiles were _not_ the same person. Mickey was all awkwardness and comic book references and nerdy rants and ridiculous puns. He was frantic, waving energy and unashamed busy-bodying. Stiles was… anger and danger and lust and violence and tragic guilt. When Mickey looked at him with love and smiles, Stiles looked at him with barely concealed hurt and fury.

Derek found his phone in his hand. He was texting Laura: _I haven’t opened the shoe-box or touched the scrapbook in three days…_ Someone politely coughed. He ignored them. _What does it mean, Laur? What could any of it mean if the man I loved wasn’t even a man at all?_

“Alpha Hale?” Derek looked up, snarling. Danny was smiling pleasantly though, waiting. “Could you please elaborate on what happened? Why were you there at Lydia Martin’s house? Was it arranged that you would meet?”

“No. I was there and it’s none of your damn business why.” It didn’t really matter that he’d gone to see Lydia because she had a connection to Mickey that he’d never understood. That she knew a part of him that he could never reach. It had half been comfort and half masochism to see her—a woman that Mickey had loved and known without any involvement on Derek’s part. “But I was there maybe an hour when Stiles showed up. He and Lydia talked—I left.” Fled, was more like it. Ran like fire was covering the ground and his feet would burn if he stayed in one place for too long.

“I see… and did you happen to hear their conversation?” Danny asked. The Huntress behind him moved a little, shifting her weight. Derek wondered where her hidden gun was. He couldn’t see it anywhere on her.

“About souls. Or something. I don’t know.”

“Please, Derek. This is important. I will contact Miss Martin regarding the conversation but I need to hear your side of things, too.”

It was the Hunter’s uncomfortable look that made Derek say it. “Apparently, Stiles is half a soul. That’s all I know, that’s all I heard.” He’d told his pack about it all when he’d run home. They knew. Still, there was something off in the air as he said the words. A strange shifting of smell, a lack of contact. As if the very idea of it all was putting up barriers between them all.

He knew they were reimagining all the conversations they’d ever had with Mickey. Knew they were looking at it all from a different angle, a different perspective. He wished they wouldn’t. Wished that Mickey’s memory could have been preserved in the past, golden and intangible and getting brighter and brighter as each day passed and the pain of his passing dimmed. But Stiles had ruined all of that. First by coming into town, with his familiar features and his mole-flecked face… and now… by being…

_Laur, what if it’s true? What if—what if Mickey was never mine?_

“Alpha Hale, please, put down your phone.” Derek put down his phone. “After that, what happened?” Danny asked, voice kind.

“I came home,” Derek said. “Nothing violent happened. We didn’t even threaten each other.” He shrugged. “Then he came by last night.”

“Last night? And what happened?” Danny asked, looking back at the Hunter, who was frowning down at her feet.

“He was covered in blood—and some black goo. I don’t know what it was but it smelled awful, like battery acid and decomposing. His shirt was gone and his chinos were all torn up…” Derek said. Stiles had stood there, all danger and tattoos and burning golden eyes. He’d almost seemed a Lycanthrope, then, his eyes had been glowing so much from pain and adrenaline and desire. Though it had been magic that had filled his scent, not emotions, magic that had dug into the air like roots leaching the oxygen away. Derek’s fingers itched to grab his phone. _Laur, he’d tattoed the trisk onto his chest, over his heart… what does that mean?_

“He had a samurai sword,” Isaac said, half smiling. “Pretty badass.”

“He called it a Tanto.” Derek nodded. “Said he got it as a gift for his twenty-second birthday by his best friend’s wife.” Stiles had said a lot that night—speaking in a way that had been familiar and different from what Derek was used to. Like Mickey, he’d clarified questions Derek hadn’t asked. But instead of saying it with nervous, babbling energy, he’d said it in a dull, far-off way, as if speaking was keeping his mind off important things.

Danny looked over his shoulder again at the Huntress. She nodded her head. “A Katana given to him by Kira McCall, Kitsune, operative 76916.”

“I thought he killed a Kitsune?” Erica asked, frowning.

“No, he said he killed a Nigitsune.” Boyd grabbed her tea and dunked it back. The faint smell of black tea and bourbon dissipated in the air.

“He, what?” The Hunter asked, frowning.

“Please, Derek..." Danny spread his hands into the air, a desperate, searching gesture.

Derek took in a deep breath through his nose, then let it out with his mouth. The lingering smell of guns and wolfsbane tingled on his tongue. “He said all the black goo was from a Nigistune he’d killed. We were on the porch, he sprayed a bit of the blood from his sword onto the wood— there are marks still there in the porch, like acid had burned the wood.” It had been a bitch to clean, stinging his skin and burning through the sponge he'd used. He couldn’t imagine it splashing on stile's skin, couldn’t imagine how Stiles had stood there with it covered him like it meant nothing. “He said something about… about going rogue. Off the reservation for the preservation.” Stiles had smirked as he'd said it, looking at Derek with all his lust and fury—it had made Derek uncomfortable.

“I think he killed the Nugitsune that was trapped in the Nemeton.” Cora murmured. “Satomi once talked about it, how she put a Nutigstune in there to bind it.”

“Interesting—did he make any violent moves towards you or your pack?” Danny asked.

“No—nothing like that. He—I think he was trying to make peace. He stormed into the house and took a shower—” He’d gone all the way up into Derek’s apartment at the top. No one had tried to stop him, they'd all been too hurt, too shocked by his presence. A half-hour later Stiles had come down wearing Derek’s sweats—and had nearly broken Derek’s heart. He’d not only showered but he’d shaved his shaggy hair and beard, too. He’d come down whistling, looking and smelling like a version of Mickey Derek had loved. No one had dared say a thing as Stiles walked by to make popcorn. They’d just watched him as he sat down in the Lazy Boy Derek was now in, munching on popcorn and smirking like he owned the very world. “Then he talked to us…”

“He said he wanted to give us closure,” Boyd said, nodding.

“Did it?” The Hunter asked, drawing Derek’s attention again. “Give you closure?”

“No." Erica said.

"He confused us. Disgraced Mickey’s memory.” Derek clarified as Erica got up with the mug in her hand, moving to go to the kitchen. He grabbed her hand to ask for one himself.

“After a few minutes, he left, leaving a mug and one of Mickey's old scrapbooks,” Isaac said.

“What did you talk about? What did he say?” The Hunter asked, stepping for a little before meeting Derek’s eyes and stepping back into place.

“He told us a... I don't even know what it was, really. It was strange. He said, 'The history of the earth' ... or maybe it was mankind?" Derek tried to remember. He closed his eyes, remembering the way Stiles had looked, sitting in the chair, his chest bare, his skin pink and fresh from the shower. " 'We certainly are not that class of beings which we vainly think ourselves to be; man, an animal of prey, seems to have rapine and the love of bloodshed implanted in his heart, nay, to hold it in the most honorable of occupation in society; we never speak of a hero of mathematics, a hero of knowledge of humanity, no this illustrious appellation is reserved for the most successful of butchers of the world.' " He'd never looked  _less_ like Mickey--speaking those haunting words.

“Then he got a phone call from someone he called Scotty—and left.” He’d been softer through that conversation, so heartbreakingly soft. More like Mickey than Derek had ever seen him.

Derek didn’t know what to feel or think. So he tried not to. He looked to the Hunter. “He said before he left that we wouldn’t be meeting again unless some ‘shit hit the fan’ and that it would be pointless looking for him. He warned us not to go into the Preserve for a few weeks—said he’d drop the bodies off at my doorstep.” Erica came back from the kitchen. He reached for her hand and squeezed her wrist before grabbing the coffee mug. It was more liquor than tea. His hissed at the burn in his stomach.

“Who is he going to kill, Derek?” The Hunter asked, frowning.

“I don’t know. He didn’t say.”

“What did he say to Scott?” She asked.

“He talked about diapers, I don’t know.” Derek shrugged. He knew. He’d heard it—they all had. Stiles had been excited about some kind of meeting, some kind of weapon. He was going to meet someone named Malia. He was also going to find some kind of Darach. Derek didn’t want to tell them all that though, he didn’t want Stiles to stop…

A year ago—he’d have said that what Stiles was doing was wrong. Derek didn’t even know what he was doing, not really, he just knew it would all end in bloodshed and more death. And Derek had seen enough of death, he knew it intimately. He knew what it felt like to wish for death. He knew what it felt like to have everything he loved and cherished ripped from him because of death. He knew what it felt like to live on beyond death… to realize that it hovered there, always… There was no reason for Derek to wish for Stiles to revenge him, causing more horror, more bloodshed. But things had changed. That morality was all from before. Before Mickey wormed his way into Derek’s heart and taught him that it was okay to hope for love again. That love could hover there, in sidelines of life, just like death could.

That was before Derek had ripped his claws through Mickey’s face. A face that was so wrong, so twisted, that Stiles’s angry, passioned face was starting to take over the memory. Now… Derek had no hope… except for Stiles’s ability to kill. He wanted Stiles to kill. He wanted to unleash Stiles in the world and take down everything that had hurt him. And he didn’t want to give the Hunter-woman the information she needed to stop him.

Hope. Maybe the wrong kind. Maybe a bloodied kind—but Derek had realized a long, long time ago that in this world, there was no such thing as a good thing without a little bloodshed to keep it.

Derek sighed. He closed his eyes and swallowed the entire cup, placing it firmly on the coffee table before him. He looked sideways at the scrapbook Stiles had given him last night—he’d said it was from Mickey’s childhood. Derek hadn’t had the balls to look at it yet. He didn’t know if he ever could.

“All right, thank you, Derek. Let’s… go over your testimony about the day he attacked you.” Danny said, sighing.  _Laur... what do I do? What do I even feel anymore? They took away his name, Laur... can I make them take away his goal, too?_

Derek wondered if he should call it off. Say he didn’t want to press charges anymore. Instead, he sighed, rolled his shoulders back, and said, “I got a call from my Beta, Boyd, to come to the shop.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The thing Stiles speaks is a direct quote from "Letter IX. Description of Charles Town; Thoughts on Slavery; on Physical Evil; a Melancholy Scene" written by John De Crevecoeur.


End file.
